Goalkeeper Positioning: The Complete Guide

You feel like you are doing everything right. Your handling is fine. You dive well enough.

And the ball keeps ending up in the net anyway.

Nine times out of ten that is not your reflexes. It is where you were standing before the shot was even hit.

Positioning is the part of goalkeeping that never shows up on a highlight reel and decides more games than diving ever will. Below are the five mistakes I see most, and what to do instead. The video below is my newest on positioning. The original, You're Doing Goalkeeper Positioning Wrong, goes through these five one by one.

Why do I keep getting beaten at the far post?

Everyone hears the same line growing up. Never concede at your near post.

If covering the near post were the whole job, I would superglue myself to it and go home. But you have a whole goal to look after, not one post.

Attackers know this. They are better than they used to be, and they notice when a goalkeeper is hugging the near post. Then they slide one into the far corner while you are stood exactly where you were told to stand.

The cone drill

My old goalkeeping coach gave me this and I still use it.

Put a cone in the exact middle of your goal. Leave it there for the whole session, including small-sided games.

It does more than mark the centre. It trains your eyes to keep checking two things at once: where the ball is, and where you are relative to the middle. After a few weeks you stop needing the cone, because your feet have learned it.

Have someone move the ball around, then find your spot and freeze before they shoot. If you can see the cone between your legs, you are close. In a match there is no cone, so use what is already painted on the pitch: the penalty spot for the middle of the goal, the six-yard box, and the lines of your area.

Small adjustments matter enormously here. A step and a half is often the difference between saving a shot and watching it. Getting there in time is a footwork job, and I break that down in goalkeeper footwork: the movement nobody teaches.

How far should I come off my line?

You see someone lining up from distance, adrenaline goes, and you charge out to make the goal look smaller.

Good instinct. Bad execution.

Coming too far off your line does two things to you. It takes away your reaction time, and it opens up the lob and the bending shot into the far top corner. You have not made the goal smaller, you have given the striker more ways to score.

Closing the angle matters. If the ball is close and there is a genuine 50/50, go and take it. But charging out at someone who has the ball under control just adds options for them.

Here is how far to come:

• Narrow angle: use your post as your guide. Line up straight with it, or one small step in front so you are not diving into it
• Central shot from outside the box: stay close to your line, one or two small steps off it
• The closer the striker gets: the more you close the space down

And whatever you do, be completely stopped and set when the shot comes. A goalkeeper still moving forward as the ball is struck saves nothing. If you are not sure what a proper set position looks like, it is the first thing in the diving guide, because every dive starts from it too.

If the attacker keeps dribbling, watch for two cues: the moment they look down at the ball, or a heavy touch. That is when you go, exactly like a 1v1.

What should I do when I cannot reach a cross?

A cross comes in. You go for it. Halfway there you realise you are not getting to it, and now the ball sails over your head into an empty goal.

Every goalkeeper has done this. I have done it in matches I would rather not think about, caught the wrong side of my front post with nothing to do but turn and watch.

Watch any goalkeeper at the top level. When they misjudge a cross, they do not keep drifting hopefully towards it. They turn and go straight back. That gives them the maximum time to react to whatever happens next.

Same on a cutback. If the ball is played across your six-yard box and you cannot smother it, drop back rather than committing.

1. Be patient. See whether you can genuinely reach it
2. If you cannot, turn your head early
3. One big step back to your line
4. Get set

Dropping back is not being passive. It is choosing the save you can still make over the one you have already lost.

Where should I stand when the ball is up the other end?

Everything above is about staying near your line. Here is the situation where that is wrong.

When play is up the other end, you have to move with your team. If they push up, you push up. If they drop, you drop. A goalkeeper camped on his line with his defence on the halfway line is a long ball waiting to happen.

Split the pitch into thirds:

Ball is in	Where you should be
Attacking third	Between the edge of your 18-yard box and the D
Middle third	On or around your penalty spot
Defensive third	Between your goal line and your six-yard box

In the attacking third you get a clear view of everything and you can cut out long balls before they become anything.

Around the penalty spot in the middle third, you are close enough to sprint out for a through ball and still able to get back if someone tries a long shot.

This is the part of positioning that stops chances existing rather than saving them once they do. It is also the part young goalkeepers skip entirely, because nothing appears to be happening.

What if my own defender is blocking my view?

You have found the perfect spot. Straight line from the middle of your goal to the ball.

Then your own centre-half steps across and you cannot see a thing.

This happens at every level of football. Shots go through legs and round bodies, and you are left feeling helpless because you never saw it leave the boot.

If you cannot see the ball, you cannot save the ball. That outranks perfect positioning every time.

What to do:

• Talk. Tell your defender which side to cover so you both know where the gap is
• Shift. Move slightly to one side of him until you can see, even though it costs you the ideal angle
• Stay low. From low down you can often see the ball through legs when you cannot see it over shoulders
• Stay near your line so you have time to react to whatever you do see
• Keep adjusting. Every touch the attacker takes changes the picture, so move with it

Giving up a bit of the perfect position to actually see the ball is a trade worth making, always.

How do you practise positioning on your own?

This is the honest problem with positioning. You cannot really drill it alone the way you can drill diving.

What you can do:

Use the cone. Middle of the goal, every session, including in games at training. It is the single most useful habit in this article.

Place the balls yourself. Put a few balls at different spots around your area. Go to each one, look at the goal, then stand where you think you should be for a shot from there. Check it against the cone. Do it often enough and you stop needing to check.

Watch football differently. Pick one goalkeeper and watch only him for ten minutes. Not the ball. Him. Watch what he does when play is 60 metres away. You will see him constantly shuffling, adjusting, resetting. That is the job.

Film yourself. Set a phone behind your goal at training. You will find out very quickly whether you are actually where you think you are.

What to work on this week

One thing.

Once you are standing in the right place, the next two things that decide your box are dealing with crosses without panicking and what you say to the players in front of you. Every positioning drill I use is in the drills library.

Penalties are positioning with more time to think, and how to save a penalty covers where to stand and which way to go. For set pieces, from free kicks to a striker standing on you at a corner, there are five legal goalkeeper tricks worth knowing.