Keeping balance

My coaching career went from zero to the top level in one day.

Being given the chance to join Liverpool’s first-team coaching staff, back in 2007, was definitely unexpected.

I had retired from playing football and, at 34, wanted to do other things with my life. But I had done my badges thinking that, at some point perhaps, I would want to do some coaching. Maybe at the professional level, maybe not.

Then, while I was on holiday I received a call from Rafa Benítez, who offered me a job interview at Melwood, Liverpool’s old training ground. There were people from the Spanish FA who had ended up working for Liverpool, and I had done my badges with the Spanish FA. I think they passed my name on to Rafa, as someone it could be worth having a chat with.

So I took a flight to Liverpool the next day. Rafa needed to replace his goalkeeping coach, so we had a conversation and he gave me the job.

I had played as a goalkeeper, mostly in the Spanish second tier, but I had no coaching experience at all. Suddenly I was with Rafa’s coaching staff – they had won titles and been through everything.

"It is so important in life to be open to listening to the people you are with"

Going into that elite, demanding environment was a huge challenge. You feel that you need to add something to the conversations, to contribute a point of view. It was hard to sleep before my first day, because I was thinking: “What am I going to do? What’s it going to be like?”

Pepe Reina was Liverpool’s first-choice goalkeeper, and he was at the top of his game. I didn’t know what to expect, but I decided to simplify things. I spoke to the goalkeepers and was open about my lack of experience at that moment. 

First things first, I resolved that I would help the goalkeepers to keep the level they had, which obviously was very high. As a coach, sometimes you can add things, you can be helpful for your players. If you’re not careful, though, you can be the opposite. That is an important lesson that I’ve learned.

So I decided to play it safe – not to fix what wasn’t broken. Then I would try to find ways to add something to their game.

Players need to trust you and see that, when they have a question, you have a solution. I tried to be ready for all the questions and help them find the right solutions.

But I have also learned through all these years of coaching that we, as coaches, learn a lot from the players. It is so important in life to be open to listening to the people you are with.

"Lukasz Fabianski and Alphonse Areola are top, reliable goalkeepers who can control any part of the game"

When you are coaching top players, sometimes you can have a feeling that, because you are the coach, you need to give them all the solutions. But sometimes they have the solutions.

Because I have been lucky to train top goalkeepers, I realised that they can find the best solutions. It’s just that, sometimes, they don’t know how they do it.

So you must pay attention to how your goalkeeper deals with situations in the game. Look at how the best goalkeepers deal with certain situations. If you analyse their game, they give you all the answers. It is for you to deconstruct what they do, and from there you can create drills, exercises and sessions, and build the right methodology.

Not all goalkeepers are able to control all the areas of the game, but you have keepers who are masters in different areas. People like to ask me: “Who is the best goalkeeper?” But I prefer to think about who is the most complete goalkeeper. 

There are goalkeepers who are the best in certain aspects of the game. Then there are goalkeepers who make you feel good because you know they have answers to all the problems on the pitch. They control all the aspects of the game.

I have complete goalkeepers at West Ham. Lukasz Fabianski and Alphonse Areola are top, reliable goalkeepers who can control any part of the game.

"Spain has been the gateway for most of the South American influence in European football"

Back when I started at Liverpool, Reina was one of the most complete goalkeepers. He could do everything: distribution, high balls, covering, 1v1s, saves. It was a big thing for me to be every day with a goalkeeper like Reina. He could teach me, in a way, how to deal with most situations in a game.

Now we see many keepers are able to control the whole game, but back in 2007 that was quite unusual. Reina, along with Victor Valdés, had come through the Barcelona system. They were starting to play the game in a different way. That was a very positive influence on me. I could see that was the way we needed to approach goalkeeping.

There was a point in the early 2000s that goalkeeping started going that way, but it was a slow process. Working on a daily basis with Reina, I became more aware of this trend. You could see it in Spain, because we had the South American influence. 

In a way, it was nothing new. How goalkeepers in Europe started to play in the early 2000s, some South American keepers had been doing 20 years before. Because Spain has been the gateway for most of the South American influence in European football, we had the influence of keepers coming from there. We learned from them and it leaked into other countries.

There was the Argentinian goalkeeper, Ubaldo Fillol, who won the 1978 World Cup and played for Atlético Madrid in the 1980s. He had the best way of dealing with 1v1s – something that Spanish goalkeepers started to introduce in Europe in the late 1990s. 

In the early 1990s, Real Valladolid had a Colombian manager, Pacho Maturana. He signed two Colombian players: Carlos Valderrama, the midfielder, and René Higuita, the goalkeeper, who was like an outfield player. 

"Before, goalkeepers needed to tick maybe five out of 10 boxes. Now, they need to tick them all"

Higuita was what we see now, where teams build with three at the back, including the goalkeeper. Instead of dropping a midfielder to build with two centre-backs, you advance the goalkeeper as the central one.

In 1991, Valladolid were building with two split centre-backs and Higuita in the middle, 10 yards outside his box, playing away from pressure. So these things were happening years ago, but in small doses.

It was Barcelona, through the Dutch influence, who really started to put it into practice in a systematic way, developing players and goalkeepers that way.

I remember the Dutch goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen playing that way for PSV Eindhoven in the 1980s. Back then, PSV were one of the best teams in Europe. They would send a throw-in straight to Van Breukelen, who would switch the play. I was like: “Wow, what are they doing?” He was excellent with the ball and supported their build-up play.

You could see these things happening a bit in Colombia, a bit in Argentina, a bit in Holland and then coming to Spain. Then Barcelona really developed that style of play, with goalkeepers controlling the game.

So for me to be able to work with Reina, who was raised that way, opened my eyes even more to this holistic approach. Now, goalkeepers have to be good with their right foot, left foot, to be able to play with a high defensive line, to be good in the air, with 1v1s. Before, goalkeepers needed to tick maybe five out of 10 boxes. Now, they need to tick them all.

"It opens more the possibility of goalkeeping coaches jumping into other positions in football"

As goalkeeping has evolved, so has the role of the goalkeeping coach. In the 1990s and early 2000s, even at professional clubs, goalkeeping coaches might go to training twice a week. They were part-time, with no coaching education.

The goalkeeping coach used to focus only on the goalkeeper, because the goalkeeper often trained away from the outfield players. The goalkeeper was quite isolated from the team during practice, and so was the goalkeeping coach. No communication with the coaching staff, just focus on the goalkeepers. That has changed.

Now, even teams in the lower leagues, in academies, have full-time goalkeeping coaches. They are an integrated part of the coaching staff, involved in team decision-making, because the goalkeeper is a very important part of the team, on and off the ball.

You cannot decide how to play out from the back if the goalkeeper is not there. You cannot decide to play high if the goalkeeper is not supporting a high defensive line. The goalkeeper needs to be there in maybe 70 per cent of the practices, because they are a fundamental part of the team. Consequently, the goalkeeping coach needs to be there as well, to develop the drills, the sessions, the methodology – so everything makes sense for the team and everyone is working with the same idea.

The coaching badges have also improved a lot. Now, in order to have the UEFA goalkeeping licence, you need to go from the outfield licence to the goalkeeping licence. You need to be a coach to become a goalkeeping coach.

In order to get the licence, you need to develop a methodology and be able to prove that you can be an active part of the coaching staff, not just an isolated coach. It opens more the possibility of goalkeeping coaches jumping into other positions in football. As an assistant manager, as a head coach, or in recruitment, because goalkeeping coaches are now very active in recruitment processes.

"To be a master of positional play, you need to get lots of things right"

When I look back, I was fortunate to work with Rafa, because he was open-minded and really integrated the goalkeeping coach. Sometimes, in a 90-minute session, I had only 15 minutes with just me and the goalkeepers. Rafa wanted them with the team, doing all kinds of tactical drills and exercises.

What I learned from all my years with Rafa – at Liverpool, Real Madrid, Chelsea and Napoli – is the importance of balance. It is vital to have a balanced goalkeeper and to have a balanced team.

Balance is trying to make the right decisions all the time, which is not easy when the game is so fast. Trying to be in the right position at the right time is very complex. 

The aim is to make it look simple. When you look at the best players in the world, the thing that stands out is how they make it look easy. How do you make it look easy? By controlling as much as they can.

Positional play is very important. To be a master of positional play, you need to get lots of things right. It is understanding patterns of play, the best position for every game situation.

Maybe you need to move up and play with more risk. Sometimes you need to play a bit safer because of the context of the game, the competition, the manager you are playing for, your teammates, your confidence levels at that moment.

"Maybe one day we will call them a ‘goalplayer’ instead of goalkeeper"

To play with balance is playing with the right amount of risk, blending the ability of the goalkeeper with the demands of the team and the manager. That reduces the probability of making mistakes.

You don’t need to be exceptional at everything, but you need to be solid, reliable and make things look very simple. Once the goalkeeper is in that zone, they can give a solid performance in every game.

At West Ham, David Moyes wants goalkeepers to be an active part of his team. David is very open-minded. He’s always trying to improve things, bringing in different coaches with different ideas. He wants to keep evolving the team, but always from a balanced position.

Being part of the West Ham coaching staff when we won the Europa Conference League was special. Winning a European trophy is not easy for any club, and for West Ham it was the first cup in 43 years.

I was proud to be involved. Compared to goalkeeping coaches from 20 years ago, you really are a part of it, which is a massive improvement – not just for goalkeeping coaches, but for football too. 

The game has taken steps to involve the goalkeeper much more in the team. To move on from people referring to a formation as a 4-2-3-1 to a 1-4-2-3-1, for example. Maybe one day we will call them a ‘goalplayer’ instead of goalkeeper. The outcome is better players who can play a different football when the goalkeeper plays an active part.

"Neuroscience needs to be more present in coaching, to develop a stable, solid mentality in goalkeepers"

But there is still a lot to do to develop a strong sense of positional play for goalkeepers. Coaching methods need to move on from isolated drills not really related to the game, to a more practical position.

It looks like a simple thing to do, but it is complex to do in the right way. To send that message through all the academies and the grassroots. To understand that we can still get the goalkeeper much closer to the team.

I also expect the psychological and cognitive development of goalkeepers to get more focus in the coming years. Understanding how the mind works, how we perceive things and how we respond to things happening at high speed. How we control our emotions and stress. It’s happening now in many clubs, but you need the resources. Neuroscience needs to be more present in coaching, to develop a stable, solid mentality in goalkeepers.

Personally, I love developing players, including being involved with the academy. Wherever I have coached, I always went to the academy to see what we had and how we could improve. Trying to give the same attention and respect to young players that we give to the professionals. I have always tried to develop a goalkeeping department everywhere I’ve been.

I feel privileged to do what I do, and really enjoy my role at West Ham. In my coaching career, I’ve been lucky to work with top managers, all of them title-winners. Perhaps one day I will get the chance to experience being a manager myself. It would be an exciting step and, at some point, I could consider making that move. For now, I am fully focused on doing my best as head of goalkeeping at West Ham.