David James regarding womens goalkeeping from the WC

[paul merson]

It's always the goalkeepers who get the stick, be it men's or women's football. During the Women's World Cup I've heard plenty of disappointing comments, with one TV pundit in particular sniggering about women goalkeepers not being good at 'handling balls', which goes to show the immature attitude toward the women's game that still prevails.

The critics seem unable to separate the genuine errors made by one or two goalkeepers from the tarring brush applied to all women keepers around the world. Anyone who watched England goalkeeper Rachel Brown make that unbelievable save against France last year in the final qualifying game that sent them to the World Cup would not doubt the capability of women keepers. In that moment Brown performed with all the agility of a Premier League goalkeeper. Again, against Germany in England's second group game, that match-saving save was Pat Jennings-esque - she could have gone with her hands and lost a split second, but she went with her feet. The ability is there in the women's game, it's just a question of feeding the evolution.

That's easier said than done. For a start, goalkeeping has always been the unfashionable position. Everyone wants to be Kelly Smith, but how many girls fancy standing between the sticks with only abuse for thanks? Outfield players don't have their mistakes highlighted like goalkeepers do - and Rachel's mistake yesterday for America's third goal will prove that point. My career can vouch for that. Still, if you don't encourage, you won't get anywhere. While boys under 10 in Premier League academies receive two to four hours dedicated technical goalkeeping training per week, girls training in our centres of excellence won't receive any technical coaching until they reach 12 years old or, in some cases, as late as 14.

Even at an elite level, women goalkeepers are still at a disadvantage. Whereas I do a technical training session every day Rachel, as England's number one, has to squeeze in her training around a full-time teaching job. Whatever way you look at it she is essentially preparing like a part-time keeper and in my view you can't expect anyone to perform consistently at the highest level without offering them full-time opportunities.

When I was at Manchester City I tried to get the women's team - also called Manchester City - to come to training with us. That's when I found out that, despite having the same name, the men's club have nothing to do with their female counterparts. Why don't more men's clubs support women's teams? Football is supposed to be a community game - 'football for all' is the FA's message - and the industry is happy enough to make money off female fans buying official shirts and merchandising, not to mention all the mums shelling out on kit for their kids, so why not invest in the women's game? With all the money being generated by clubs we should be putting more into community schemes which encourage participation in women's football instead of increasing the wedge of cash in players' pockets.

Until then, how can we complain about goalkeeping standards? I don't want to gloss over the situation, some of the performances in this tournament have been sub-standard. Vanina Correa of Argentina had a nightmare against Germany. But we've seen high-scoring games in the men's World Cup - usually against countries who are still developing the sport, just as Argentina are developing their women's game.

I would relish the chance to do some goalkeeper coaching in the women's game - although I'd need to get my badges first. From what I've seen the two areas they need to focus on are kicking and agility. I've noticed women goalkeepers often struggle to kick the ball past the halfway line. It's an area that I needed help with myself - nailing that 50-yard kick that reaches the player you're targeting - and so I recruited a kicking coach.

The Japan goalkeeper Miho Fukumoto was superb on agility and it was interesting to note her training routine before the game - it reminded me of a Tuesday with Colesy, the Pompey goalkeeping coach. She was flinging herself on to balls, up and down all the time, hardcore stuff, and she replicated it with the saves she made in the game. On the whole, women need to work harder laterally to cover the goalmouth - they often end up scrambling to reach the wide shots. It's not like Liverpool's Pepe Reina, who is beautiful to watch. He is crab-like on the goalline, has a low centre of gravity and he really works on it. Size shouldn't be made into an issue here. With a bit more agility training women could master that technique.

People have talked about making the goals smaller in the women's game - the average height of the 48 goalkeepers in this tournament is around 5ft 8in. Compare that to the men's game, where every keeper is more than six foot and you can see where the suggestion comes from. But if you change the goals you change the game, and you would be in danger of ending up with a sideshow - half-size pitches with five-a-side games, 25 minutes each way. You'd be treating women's football like something for the under-10s. It's an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction, like the people who said we should increase the size of the goals in the men's game.

This has been the first Women's World Cup I've watched and considering the position of women's football at the moment, I think we've seen some good stuff. The goalkeeping will take slightly longer to catch up with the outfield players' development, but that is standard in football. When I first joined Liverpool we didn't have a proper goalkeeping coach. It was only a little over 10 years ago that Liverpool - one of the best sides in Europe - finally recruited someone for the position. If only England had beaten America yesterday the evolutionary line in women's football might just have been speeded up a little.

[BillShankly]

fantastic article.

[Missing Post Count]

It was a good article. Having played all my career as a keeper I know what it's like for people to remember keeper's mistakes. Unlike other players who have someone to clean up behind them keepers don't so any mistake is usually going to lead to a goal - which everyone remembers.

All in all, I enjoyed what I saw of the Women's World Cup (except Norway being beaten by Germany)

[paul merson]

Yeh bill he is quite a good writer, his articles are once a month on the gaurdian site.
I really agree with the point and before I get shot down I have seen a limited amount of womens football in Adelaide, but through speaking with keepers & coaches who have dealt on the womens side alot of it comes down to technique and the early developement of it. I had a specialised keeper coach when I was 5 in which I trained with him for 2 years before playing on the field untill I was 13. So I got the basics early then just built on that when I returned to goal keeping. How many girls are getting GOOD keeper training at that age? Which, and Im not going into the polotics ect in this as I dont actually know what happened, but I could never understand why we, Metro, never worked with the girls team, we had loads of experience at the club and could have been good for the girls and good for our coaching developement.
All i am saying is I think the basics need to be drilled into girls early, as do guys, so they can build on it, In saying that I did a session last year with the SASI keeper at Croydon and was very impressed.