You're In Safe Hands With Me. Maybe. Probably not.
The art of goalkeeping, as taught to me through pain
Goalies are cool. Here’s Marc Andre Ter Stegen doing something super cool and then being super cool against Mallorca on Sunday:
A friend of mine always says that you have to be a little off to sign up to be a goalie. She’s right: I’ve met a few and they’re all at least slightly nuts. One summer in college, I went on a road trip that included a brief stop in Charlottesville, Virginia, to see a friend attending the University of Virginia. She was roommates with 2 of the UVA women’s team’s goalies and we spent a couple of hours hanging out, talking mostly about them and their athletic abilities. Both were quick to show their (literal) scars from years playing and practicing at an uncompromising level: elbows worn through from daily diving and sliding drills, knees and forearms torn up by turf and wayward cleats.
My coworker was out for several weeks after he suffered a compound fracture to his shin in a collision with a striker in his over-25 men’s league. He returned to play as soon as he was declared fit. Again, that’s a league he probably paid a fee to be in, not some stepping stone to greater sporting success. My teammate in high school took a goalpost to the forehead in a scramble for a ball. He tried to not let them take him off the field, although to be fair I’m not sure he was aware he’d just faceplanted into a metal bar, such was the force of the impact. Concussion protocol being what it was in 2000, he was checked by our assistant coach/trainer and allowed to continue playing. He shrugged it off later as just part of the game.
And once I played as goalie in a pickup game in the highlands of Guatemala that taught me two valuable lessons:
If you’re going to play goalie of any sort, at any level, get some damn gloves and
Do not ever play goalie.
I was learning Spanish in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, which is 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) above sea level, and in the evenings I sometimes went to play soccer at a covered Astroturf field. Even if it rained, we could play. The skill level was fairly low, but it was also pretty fun because it was a way to help improve my Spanish (all curse words: learned) and to make friends.
In one session, we played six-a-side, first goal wins. Goalies in front of medium-sized goals, not those foldable Pugg goals, but instead big square net with solid, permanent posts and even a net. Loser rotated out and then immediately back in on the next goal. There weren’t gloves, just your bare hands. The ball was a regulation size 5. In a matter of moments it was obvious that my squad was atrocious. I take my blame in this: I was a turnstile in midfield. Our first goalie quit in disgust, saying he was going to play in the field just to maybe get a touch that wasn’t him picking the ball out of the net. So I volunteered to go in goal. A legend was born. Or something.
They attacked immediately because our goalie wasn’t any better (certainly not worse) than I had been and the first shot came blistering in. I don’t remember how I saved it, but I did. Probably it just happened to bounce off some body part or another, but whatever it was, I saved it and the unexpected delight of doing so was a thrill. I exhorted the defense to close them down, let’s go, we got this, but the shots kept coming. I remember moving forward toward an attacker and doing the I’m actually really big thing you do where you wave your arms and puff out your cheeks when you want to scare some animal. I kick saved it. Everyone cheered. I dove for one shot, bouncing hard off the turf. I didn’t dive again.
I grew in confidence, they grew in frustration. Everyone was laughing about how absolutely absurd it was that this guy, clearly terrible at being a goalie, was saving everything. Standing on my head, as they say in hockey. At one point they had 3 attackers (out of 5 players!) coming at me and I did what felt like a Keanu Reeves impression to slap the ball out for a corner after it had seemingly gone by me.
I assume that is horrible technique.
Eventually they were going to score; we all knew it. How could they not? The law of averages was on their side. Soon enough, though, someone took a shot from close range that I blocked with the flat of my hand. It broke a blood vessel in my finger, which swelled up. I kept playing, but I was not as confident now and someone slipped the ball past me. I went to the sideline and got congratulations from most everyone. What a guy, what a display, etc.
And then one of the teams on the field scored and it was our turn again. And here is where you separate the Normals from the Goalies: I did not want to go back in goal. I was coaxed to do so and played dismally. Every shot went by me. The magic spell was broken, but also, my hand hurt like hell; I was almost scared of the ball after that because I was thinking about my hand instead of dismissing what had come before and just…playing.
A few years later, I played in a corporate league in the US and our usual goalie was out with back spasms.1 All we had were some gloves that might have been older than I am, but I found myself putting them on and assuming we were about to lose by a thousand goals. I didn’t want to dive because it was that weird fake grass stuff with the rubber pellets and I was for sure going to strip the skin from my forearms if I even looked at it askance. My UVA team friends would have been too embarrassed to be seen with me after that, for sure.
Eventually the other team worked their way through our defense and took a shot. I don’t know if I cowered in just the right way or actually tried to block it while looking the other direction, but I slapped the ball over the bar. Surprised, I was too flustered at my own success to do anything except punch the ball away when it came in from the resulting corner. Just an instinctual act, self-preservation or something. I then strung together an impressive series of saves, including a kick save that I actually meant and saving a 2-on-1 by charging out unexpectedly and cutting angles quickly enough that the forward flubbed his lines. I was back!
Another pile driver shot came in and I parried it away. It felt like something gave way in the palm of my hand. The fleshy part of my palm at the base of my thumb started to swell. I wanted to cry. And then I let in 5 goals on the next 5 shots.
Do not be a goalie, it brings only pain and madness. And sometimes cool pictures of you yelling.
The guy is your quintessential Angry-Looking Eastern European Guy™ who is actually very nice and not mean at all, but also is, obviously, a black belt in karate. He took up the sport in his 30s because it helped his bad back, but occasionally he would get clobbered so hard in training or whatever he was doing with those karate skills that he’d have to hobble around the office for a few weeks grimacing. “I’m fine, just pain,” he would say when asked. I prefer to think he moonlights as a super hero.
This is absolutely true. I have done spit replacements as keeper and I do well enough but I do not *want* to play there. Whenever we find someone crazy enough to want to play there they end up being everyone’s favorite GK and play in all of our rec leagues. Too precious.
As an aside, my left pinkie still hurts because I saved a rocket shot. I don’t know how or why it hurts as I didn’t think I jammed it when I made the save.