Justin Asked: I'm having trouble dealing with crosses that are coming into my box. I know I have to go and catch them (or at least punching it away) to take away the opponents header, but I don't feel confortable about doing it. can you give me advice?

Justin,

Thank you for submitting your question to Ask the Goalkeeper. I feel that crosses are often over looked by many goalkeepers. I have a couple crossing drills posted that you might want to try. Have a look at Crossing: Divided 18 Crossing Drill and Crossing: Distraction Crossing Drill. Both are good drills to get a lot of repetition and to work on decision making.

Here are a few pointers to think about when coming out on crosses. Make sure not to come out to early and be waiting to catch the ball. You want your last step to give you momentum going to the ball. I see a lot of keepers get to the spot of where the ball is coming and then have to jump straight up to catch it. You want to attack the ball. The problem with getting there to early is that if a forward is coming into you it is going to be easy for them to knock you off of the ball. Also don’t take large stretched out steps when coming out. Small, compact, quick steps will give you more power coming through the ball. When you take large step a lot of the times when you jump you will be floating more to the ball than being explosive through it. This is a hard concept to describe, but go out and try it. I think you will feel a big difference of how much power you have when you are jumping to the ball when you take smaller, quicker steps.

It is also important to have your body turned toward the direction of where the ball is coming from. You want your body facing where the ball was played. Sometimes this will take a bit of an arced run to get this angle. Have a look at this drill “Crossing: Around Cone Attacking Drill” for getting your body facing the direction of the flight of the ball.

My final pointer is that you want to raise one of your knees as you jump. The raised knee will give you the “three D’s”. The three D’s are “distance, deterrence, and defense”. Your knee gives you distance in your jump by providing momentum. It also give you deterrence because if a forward sees you coming up with your knee they are more likely to pull out of the challenge and finally it gives you defense for when a player does come into you by offering protection. It is important to know which knee to raise. If a cross is coming from your right then you will want to jump off of your right leg and raise your left knee. If the cross is coming from your left then you want to jump off of you left leg and raise your right knee. By raising the correct knee it will help turn your body to face where the ball is coming from as well as close your body off from attackers coming in. When you are jumping you want your outside thigh to be facing predominantly toward the center of the field.

As for when you need to punch or catch, it is a personal decision, but you are going to be more likely to punch the ball when there is a lot of traffic. If you are going up to battle for the ball it is a good idea to be safe and punch it out. There are many times when you are going up for a ball and you are unaware if there is someone challenging from behind. It is important for you to get on the same page with your defenders and have them let you know when you are going up for a ball if you are free or if there is a man challenging.

Crosses are difficult to work on and even more difficult to describe. I hope I was able to give you a few tips that you can work on. Please let me know if there is anything that you would like me to go into more detail about or if there is anything else I can help you with.

Thank you,

Chase Harrison

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