Just wondering out loud here... Anyone know of what clubs generally employ solid Trainers for keepers?
Neil Thompson at Sockers and Stan Anderson at Fire are both excellent. If you're talking more generally, I've found that my kids need to be at a larger club to get any GK training at all, and most of those are fairly useless. It's not hard to tell a good GK coach... -Are they just running the kids through drills or are they stopping to correct form? During training they need instruction more than repetition. They can get repetitions at home. -Are they focused on a subset of kids or do they coach all kids? You shouldn't pay a coach to tell your kid he's great while he spends all his time on the weaker kids. You also shouldn't pay a coach to ignore your weaker/younger kid while he spends all his time on his stars. -Usually GK training is short and overcrowded. You want a coach that expects the kids to be there early and warm up on their own. You don't want to spend 20 minutes of a 60 minute session on warmups. -See if the coach will watch your kid's games. This is extremely rare even for those that say they do, but it's an invaluable experience even if you can get it a couple of times a year.
Have heard very good things about Neil Thompson as well. Currently trying to find out if he does privates for a friend of mine. In the meantime, here's a great goalkeeping vid that was making the Twitter rounds a couple months ago.
I always liked Albert at Sockers and Neil is fantastic with the older players - my oldest just had camp with him this past week. Basically I have a bud who is at FCB, daughter is good but not getting more then half games. They left Sockers because they were going to go from the McH location to Schaumburg but were told that she would not start. She as well was at camp with Neil this past week and they really liked him - so much that the consideration is there to move back to Schaumburg despite not getting more then a half a game on the top team. Moreover though the experience of working with Neil revealed to the dad (who stayed an watched a bit), just how poor the keeper training at FCB is. So he is looking at options. Maybe ELA or Libertyville?
Neil runs an outfit called Big Cat Goalkeeping, through which he does camps, small group clinics, and I assume some personal training. Check out www.bigcatgoalkeeping.com.
My son was at that camp as well. Neil is new at the camp thing, this being his first residential camp, and I think he probably overworked the kids a bit. At more established camps they get more rest so they can get more out of the time on the field. It's tough, because game time is so important to a goalkeeper and many of the top clubs are playing fewer games in favor of more training. My son goes to 3-4 goalkeeper training sessions a week plus 3 team training sessions. And he's splitting time. He has great training, but needs more games. Frankly I'm not sure if the benefit of training is worth having to split time. You can always get training outside your club. No experience up there.
How about correcting while putting kids through drills? GK practice is usually only 60 minutes and once a week, so coaches have to be economical - drills and corrections simultaneously. Also, I'm not sure kids who play as GKs get enough or any repetitions at home, especially at the younger ages. I think it is important for parents to observe how team coaches incorporate GKs into their team training. In addition, private lessons with a GK coach would certainly help. One of my close friends has a daughter and she improved a lot last year/season as GK because she was attending every GK practice, she was taking private lessons and her team coach was someone who incorporated GKs well into his team practices. Sometimes instead of a private lesson, I took her with me and my younger son (he is one year younger than her), whenever he would work on his shooting/finishing.
In my opinion (as a former mediocre keeper) is that the list starts and ends with Mark Hackett. He was at Galaxy last I knew, not sure where he is now. He is a coach your kids will hate at practice and love on gamedays because they are so prepared. I used to get sore watching his sessions.
Nope, he used to be and left. Pretty sure he isn't there now, not listed on their website and they have another goalkeeping director.
My bad, then. I googled him and saw relatively recent dates with his name still attached to Eclipse, but never actually went to their site. Mea culpa.
Mark is still with Galaxy, he just finished his first year with the club. I am not sure if I would agree with him being the end all be all, though it has only been a year. He appears to have a very cookie cutter approach to the position and favors style over success in game situations. Not to say his style/technique is wrong but it becomes the evaluation/team placement tool rather than actual results.
Also be aware that his motivational method is to tell you you're terrible. That works for some, not for others. I know people who love his training. I've also seen him destroy the confidence of a young keeper whose game performance dropped significantly to the point where she quit soccer altogether.
I should have noted that Neil took a group on tour in England, so he may not be easily reachable until they return. His web site has the dates of the trip.