Danny Vukovic’s positioning mistake to concede the lone goal of the game to Alex Brosque’s Sydney FC last week showcases the positional ineptitude plaguing our A-League goalkeepers.
Brosque gunned for goal with his first touch, a fast and clinical kick at Vukovic’s near post. The near post which should’ve been Vukovic’s first priority to protect.
Instead, he could only stand still as the ball curled past his right side, guilty of second-guessing that Brosque would shoot far post.
Tellingly, he didn’t shout at his defenders, instead staying planted to the ground in frustration.
In a season which is seeing young goalkeepers like Danny Vukovic, Tando Velaphi and Mitch Langerak being given the chance at the spotlight alongside the A-League’s old hands, it’s clear that our goalkeepers need to look up to the green and gold standard in Mark Schwarzer.
Vukovic, like most Australian keepers, possesses the keen physical reflexes required for the job, honed by Australia’s unique environment where we all learn to catch a rugby league ball and peg a cricket ball as well as kick the round ball into the stands.
But positionally he’s out of whack. If you watch most of the top A-League goals of the last five years, most of them are the result of goalkeepers standing too far out from the goal line. Vukovic is too centre in this case, offering Brosque too much of a sniff on goal.
And he lacks aggression, so often catching himself halfway between closing down the striker and sitting on the goal line, neither closing down the angle nor offering himself enough time to respond to shots.
Sure, Vukovic is a young keeper still learning his trade. But really, if he is worthy of selection for the Australian contingent to play Kuwait, he needs to learn the art of consistency.
And that begins by looking up to Shwarzer and studying his game.
After all, Schwarzer turns it on week in week out in the EPL. He isn’t an award winner for world’s best goalkeeper, but he is arguably the most consistent goalkeeper in the EPL, playing an important part in propelling Fulham up the ladder. And he is an important part of the Australian World Cup qualification campaign.
He stays within a metre or two of his goal line, allowing himself maximum time to respond to shots, and stopping the chance of being chipped.
When he wants to close, he quickly moves spreading to close angles of attack. And he jumps at everything that moves, rather than sitting around like a duck.
But most importantly, he applies these techniques week in week out, without fail.
For our keepers, priority number one should be to understudy with a goalkeeping great like Schwarzer. But Socceroos camps are few and far in-between.
So in the absence of Mark Shwarzer as a mentor for our Australian goalkeepers at this stage, it would be well worth videotaping his games, analysing his tactics and positioning for our young keepers to learn from.
We need to demand this kind of intensive learning from our elite players. Otherwise, how else can the standards of our A-League goalkeepers rise? A-League football in comparison to internationally renowned leagues is lazy and backward in preparation and intelligence.
Improvement begins with our players aspiring to mimic the best. And for our goalkeepers, that means mimicking Mr Consistency Mark Schwarzer himself.
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