The relativity of “being in position”

To be in position makes the life of goalies much easier. No epic dive or hectic repositioning is needed. We already talked about the three essential properties of “being in position” on our “Basic” section on our webpage and the initial position in one of our first posts. However, we have to consider that it does not exist “the one and only position” which fits to every situation. To clarify this, let’s consider a short example.

Explanation

• Starting point
• Striker runs straight toward your goal from the midline
• You are in the goal and observe his run
• 1. Action
• You come out of your goal and be in position. This means:
• You are squared
• On angle
• Increase depth
• Pose: Initial positio
• As the striker is still a few meters far away from you, you place your hands almost on the same height like your shoulders. We recommend you to place your hands on a height where you have a good balance to react on shoots to the corner goalpost and shoots right above your hips –meaning somewhere in between that the reaction distance in both directions is not too long.
• 2. Action
• However, the striker does not shoot and continues his run towards the goal
• You have to react to the new situation
• The striker did not change his running direction, meaning you are still in the same position – you could play a bit with your hand to show the striker a possible gap and close it right after again. However, your arms are not in position anymore
• As the striker decreases the distance, your hands are moving passively above the goal – hands do not cover the goal anymore
• You have to lower the position of your hands to cover the goal perfectly – this means you go with your whole body a bit down – pelvis moves back to the shoes to stay balanced
• It sounds a bit confusing: Make yourself smaller to get bigger once the striker runs towards you. As closer the striker as lower your hands

Summary
This adaption of your hands and body also takes place when you react and decrease the distance to the striker. It takes some time to get a feeling about a good height of your hands for a certain situation. We recommend you to use a camera of a mobile phone or tablet, to train and review these poses. The following video will clarify the position of your hands for certain distances.