Football is a game of highs and lows. Of course, you could say that about so many sports. But football, in particular, can feel like a rollercoaster ride every single match. One minute, everything’s going well. Your team scores a goal. You celebrate, feeling on top of the world. The next minute, everything can change. A bad tackle, a mistake, a red card, a goal conceded. It all flips in a heartbeat.
This is especially true for goalkeepers, who experience some of the highest highs and lowest lows of any player on the pitch. Naturally, goalie actions tend to come under more scrutiny than those of outfield players. If you do something great – like a big save – you look like a hero. But if you make a mistake, you soon find yourself in the role of the villain.
Dealing with all of that, mentally and emotionally, isn’t easy. It takes its toll. Indeed, many goalkeepers, even the very best, go through tough times with their mental health, and it works both ways. You can feel so elated with a good save that you become cocky and error-prone. Or, you can dwell on a bad moment so much that you start to feel anxious between the sticks.
This guide will take a look at how to cope with those two extremes – the highs and lows of being a keeper.
The Highs of Goalkeeping
Let’s start on a positive note. The highs of goalkeeping are those wonderful moments that make all your hard work worth it. They’re the big saves, the penalty heroics, the rushes from your box to stop a dangerous move before it even has time to develop. They’re the high fives from your teammates and the rushes of adrenaline that come from helping your side win a match.
In short, these are fun, positive moments. But even positive emotions can be dangerous if you don’t know how to deal with them correctly. Confidence is essential for a keeper. But those special saves and big moments can push your mindset from confident into overconfident. That’s when mistakes start to happen.
A cocky or overconfident keeper may feel that they don’t need to try as hard. They might overestimate their skills or abilities, feeling like no shot can ever get past them. That sort of attitude breeds complacency and may make you more likely to make mistakes or lose focus at key moments.
How to Deal with Them
If you want to avoid slipping on the banana skin of overconfidence as a keeper, the key is simple. Just move on. Take pride in your saves and enjoy those moments, just like how a striker would enjoy scoring a goal or a midfielder providing an assist. But remember that a game is more than moments. It’s 90 minutes of effort, concentration, and hard work.
After a striker scores a goal, they can’t stop running and working for the rest of the game. The same applies to keepers. Even if you make a super save, it won’t count for anything if you let in a goal five minutes later. So, try to use your successes to fuel you for the rest of the game. Be even more focused and determined to make them count and get the win.
The Lows of Goalkeeping
Next, the lows. While the highs are at least pleasant to experience, in spite of the inherent risks, the lows can completely destroy your mood. You let a weak shot slip between your legs, or the ball slip through your fingers. You rush out to stop a forward but end up completely missing the ball. You make a terrible call when a cross or corner comes in and concede a goal.
In those moments, many keepers say that they wish the ground would simply open up and swallow them. They want to hide, to leave the pitch, or to turn back time and do things differently. Unfortunately, none of that can happen. Instead, they have to keep on playing and invariably deal with more difficult situations as the game progresses.
Naturally, making mistakes or letting in goals can knock your confidence. Even professional keepers, with all their training and mental conditioning, suffer from this issue. They feel hopeless, lonely, ashamed, angry, a whole spectrum of emotions – almost all of them negative. This can put them into a spiral, and it can harm their performance not just for the rest of that game, but for many more games to come.
How to Deal with Them
Dealing with the lows is undoubtedly harder than dealing with the highs. But the same rule applies here. Just move on. As hard as it may be, accept your mistakes, acknowledge that they’ve happened, and then move on from them. Know that you can’t change the past. Remember that even the very best keepers in the world have been in the same position as you. Then try to let it go and get back in the game.
Remind yourself that, as stated above, football matches are more than just individual moments. They require a full hour and a half of concentration and focus. Even if you had one bad moment, you can still do your best for the other 89 minutes to support your team. That’s a much better use of your time and energy than dwelling on a mistake or replaying it in your mind.
Summing Up: The Right Attitude
If you play as a goalkeeper, there are bound to be both highs and lows. You’re going to make great saves and put in amazing performances. You’re also going to have moments when things don’t go the way you wanted. It happens to every goalie. Ultimately, the best way to cope with that is to simply accept it. Accept that you’ll have highs and lows, and that it’s just part of the game.
Every keeper has to find their own personal way of dealing with those moments and not feeling overwhelmed with emotions. Don’t let yourself get too high when the highs come, nor too low when the bad moments occur. Move on. Look forward. Focus on your next save, your next pass, your next match. If you can adopt this kind of forward-thinking mindset, you should find that those extreme high and low emotions won’t affect you quite as much.