The older ones among us certainly still remember the scene when Oliver Kahn, after a mistake by his teammate Andreas Herzog, grabbed him by the jersey coming from behind and shook him vigorously several times. This was undoubtedly also a form of communication, but one that made sense for the team's success? Xavi Ferrando, who has been working at La Masia, the youth department of FC Barcelona, for 11 years, addressed this very question in his lecture "Goalkeeper communication during the game". To anticipate: Kahn's behavior would not have been presented as exemplary!

First, however, Ferrando used a graphic to show how goalkeeper training is structured at FC Barcelona. At the professional level, there are three full-time goalkeeper coaches for the A and B teams as well as for the U19s, and four in the La Masia youth academy from U8 to U16. The topic of Ferrando's talk was "Goalkeeper communication during the game." He began by noting that everyone always communicates in their daily lives, whether they say something or not. It is the same with a goalkeeper. Every goalkeeper first communicates with himself. This inner communication is expressed in his posture as well as in his actions. If he has doubts about his performance or fears of failure, he radiates this uncertainty. Conversely, the goalkeeper has a self-confident aura when he is convinced of himself. He used a figure to illustrate the importance of a goalkeeper's physical expression. Around 50% of communication in a keeper is made up of body language (face, hands, eyes, gestures, posture ...), was Ferrando's statement. Equally important, however, is the communication between the goalkeeper and his teammates. Often, according to Ferrando, goals fall because of a lack of communication among players. Therefore, he said, young goalkeepers in particular need to be taught to talk at all and then taught how to communicate properly with each other. This is because the same information can be expressed in completely different ways in terms of language. There is usually a difference between what a goalkeeper thinks, what he says and what his teammate understands. In training, therefore, it is necessary to constantly practice that and how the information is correctly received by the teammates.

In order to be able to communicate properly, the first basic requirement is that the goalkeeper himself understands the game, because only then can he give the right instructions. The goalkeeper coaches at Barca first teach how to communicate correctly within the goalkeeper group, then in a small group together with field players, and finally in the game with the entire team. Game analyses are used to determine which goalkeeper instructions are necessary, and then decisions are made on how to improve communication in training. Using video scenes from the youth level, he made clear how even very young goalkeepers move along with the entire team without words, depending on the game situation, because they reflect internally on the respective game situation. He described this behavior as communication with oneself. With a graphic he made clear which thoughts can be present in the head of a goalkeeper. These include instructions from the coach, the behavior of teammates, possibly thoughts about the referee or even about the spectators and the surroundings. Young goalkeepers would first need to realize that they need to talk to their teammates and why. At first, he said, it's not important what they say, but just that they start talking. Ferrando illustrated how the Barca coaches get the very young goalkeepers to talk with a video sequence in which a blindfolded young goalkeeper was directed from hoop to hoop by another goalkeeper. In addition to the guidance, the encouragement of the "leader"(e.g. "Don't worry about it ...) was also important. Sometimes TW coaches at Barca also take notes on what the goalkeeper said during the game in different situations (placing the wall, placing the players after the game was stopped, etc.). These statements serve as a basis to discuss which instructions succeeded and which need to be improved. With further tips, he showed how, for example, a young goalkeeper can be encouraged to speak loudly or be coached behind the goal by the TW coach in a meaningful way. Sometimes, however, the academy goalkeepers themselves get the task of coaching younger goalkeepers.

In the last part of his presentation, Ferrando presented examples of "non-effective" and "effective communication." For example, he counted behaviors such as yelling at teammates, using the wrong choice of words, talking too fast or too slow, wrong body language, or talking incessantly as not effective communication. Much better for him are other forms of communication: Expressing help in a respectful tone, praising teammates, calling them by name when addressing them, or giving clear instructions. He counts concrete requests like "get closer, touch the opponent" instead of general phrases like "let's go". In Ferrando's opinion, all forms of communication should always express respect for the teammate. But how does a goalkeeper know what to say in any given situation? To that end, Barca has developed its own language code within the club. No matter who is playing or which Barca team a goalkeeper is on, all players use the same words. On the four areas of goal defense, defending space, processing back passes and attacking play, he used various video sequences from the youth level with speech bubbles superimposed to show how goalkeepers trained at Barca communicate with their teammates in each game situation. In his summary, Ferrando once again pointed out the importance of communication. On the one hand, the goalkeeper helps his teammates, on the other hand, it is also important for the goalkeeper himself, because he remains attentive even when his team is very superior. In addition, the goalkeeper maintains the so important body language with constant communication. Of course, the communicative requirements would have to be adapted to the age of the goalkeepers.

In the practical part that followed, Xavi Ferrando showed how to improve the goalkeeper's attention and perception as well as his decision-making in 1vs1 situations by means of some interesting exercises. We will publish some of these exercises on Goalguard soon.