If I had a nickel for each time someone asked me to give individual lessons.... I’d have a lot of nickels.

There are benefits to individual training, but there are also lots of things a goalkeeper or any player can work on alone or with one other person. 

Jump roping is a fantastic exercise to improve GK’s quickness, agility and power.  Begin by just trying to jump rope without stopping for 10 minutes with a two footed jump.  Over time one should be able to increase time as well as jump for 30 seconds to 1 minute on one leg and then alternate to the other. 

Having a friend to hit balls medium paced to you and making sure every catch is perfect.  It may seem easy, but you will develop a nice pair of hands and eventually you can have your friend hit balls with more and more pace on them.  Even better is to find a wall in a raquetball court, a gym, wherever you can find it and volley low driven balls at the wall catching them as it rebounds back to you.  Keep on moving closer and closer to the wall so the time you have to react becomes shorter and shorter.

Another concept is preparing in practice as if it were an important game.  Too often I see keepers train hard at keeper practice and because a coach isn’t giving individual attention, they waste valuable training opportunities at practice.  If it is shooting practice, go for everything.  Try to catch everything. Push yourself.  If it is a scrimmage, or a drill where a GK does not get much action, that is actually very game-like.  Make each save count.  Set a goal to work on your range for breakaway saves.  Be more aggressive off your line to win more balls on crosses and through balls.  Try to transfer some of the GK training to team training as well as the games. 

Working on distribution with your feet is always good to work on if you have down time at practice.  1/2 volleys, goal kicks and punts will naturally get better with work and repetition.  Your body will figure out what works and what doesn’t and the muscles you use for kicking will get stronger with practice.  I’ve always believed that working on your own will reap quicker results because finding the answer sticks better than having someone give it to you.  My thoughts were engraned after my trip to Brazil.  I saw more soccer than ever before; on the beaches, in parking lots, in the median of freeways and the players were fantastic; even the youngest of players.  The one thing I didn’t see was a coach.  These kids learned how to be great by watching and trying and having a ball without a word from anyone.

Anyone heard of Marta?  She is the MVP of FIFA and has been for 2 years in a row.  The best women’s player in the world who schooled the USA in the World Cup.  She grew up in a poor part of town with no space, no fields, nothing but a garbage dump that her families hut was built upon.  She learned how to play soccer when the tide went out... when it came in, she had no room to play any more.  In 2008 let’s earn some confidence and have some fun by mastering one thing on our own.