Bad Goalkeeper Habits: 5 That Are Costing You Goals

Goalkeeping is the hardest position on the pitch. Most of us make it harder than it needs to be.

Not by lacking talent. By repeating small things that quietly cost us goals, week after week, without ever noticing.

Here are the five I see most often, including the one that held me back for years.

Why does my throw always get intercepted?

You make a good save. Now you need to find a team-mate.

So you throw it as hard as you can. And your team-mate wrestles with a ball that is curling, spinning and bouncing, loses it, and the other team is back on you.

Your team-mate spends their first touch taming it instead of looking up, and that touch is where the possession goes.

Same principle when you roll it. Do not just toss it out and hope.

It makes their job easier, and it makes you look like a goalkeeper who knows what he is doing.

Why do my goal kicks keep going into the ground?

This is the one that drove me mad as a teenager.

I could not work out what I was doing wrong. I tried harder, I ran up faster, and the ball kept coming off low and short. It took me far too long to see it.

I was leaning forward. I thought leaning into the ball would give me more power, and instead I was driving it straight into the turf.

Think about leaning over a golf ball and expecting it to fly. It cannot.

That is genuinely it. One small change. It still takes practice to make it automatic, but the problem itself is not complicated, which is exactly why it is so frustrating to spend years not seeing it.

Why does the ball slip past my hand on low dives?

You go down for a low shot, get a hand to it, and it slips through anyway.

Two things usually cause it.

Get low first. Push your hands out towards the ball with your lower hand almost brushing the grass. Think about sliding your body in behind it, so your hands and your body make one solid wall rather than a hand arriving on its own.

Make that your default and the low saves get cleaner almost immediately.

There is more to it than the low dive. The four diving techniques every goalkeeper needs covers the collapse save, the high dive, and the one almost nobody teaches.

Should I catch everything, or is parrying fine?

In a match, parrying is sometimes the right call. In training, it is a habit that will cost you.

A hard shot comes in and punching or parrying is simply easier. So you do it. And every time you push a ball back out into the box, you have handed the other team a second chance.

Your defenders notice. Strikers notice more.

What should I do after I concede?

Here is the habit that does the most damage, and it is not technical at all.

You let one in and immediately decide you are the worst goalkeeper alive.

I understand it. Everyone in this position has had that walk back to pick the ball out of the net. But telling yourself "I can't do this" or "I'm not good enough" is not neutral. Say it for long enough and it becomes true, because you start doubting every decision, and then even routine saves feel impossible.

The fix is simple, though not easy.

1. Notice it. Most goalkeepers never realise how harshly they speak to themselves
2. Flip it. "I can't do this" becomes "I can do this"
3. Ask yourself: would I talk to a team-mate like that?

It feels daft the first few times. Do it anyway.

What to work on this week

Every drill for fixing these is sorted by skill on the goalkeeper drills page, and the hand habits specifically are broken down in the catching guide.