This week's topic in Rabona's Social Media Challenge is about one of the key positions in the world of football: the goalkeeper. In this article I will introduce the current goalkeeper in my squad, I only have one, and briefly explain my view on the characteristics I look for when assessing the ability of a goalkeeper at Rabona. Let's get started.
Well, pretty self explanatory I guess. This stat has an effect on the likelyhood, that a shot which hits the goal will score. In other words, the higher this stat the lower the likelyhood your opponent will score.
There is little more to add to the game guide's description of the goalkeepers' main skill. It goes without saying that our goalkeeper should have as high a goalkeeping skill as possible. It is not a secret or something to be studied. The main part of differentiating a good goalkeeper from a better one is the secondary skills.
According to the guide, the goalkeeper strength calculation includes goalkeeping skill in addition to passing, speed and endurance. The latter being twice as important as the other two secondary skills. So there is no doubt here either. Passing, speed and endurance must be trained in our goalkeepers. Taking into account that they are three useful skills for the rest of the players we will not have any problem in training them.
Goalkeeping, passing, speed and endurance. The guide says these are important so you need to work on them. The question arises: what about the rest of the skills? Is it important to train goalkeepers in defence? Here comes my theory about it. A theory in which, of course, I could be wrong. Feel free to let me know your impressions or your theories in the comments.
It is also logical to think that neither dribbling nor shooting is something we should train. In fact, goalkeeping skill is directly measured by the shooting of opposing players. What I do think is useful to train are the skills of defending and headball. It is not for nothing that the goalkeeping position is eminently defensive. So a goalkeeper with an acceptable level of defence cannot be detrimental. Being a key skill for all players is something that our goalkeepers will receive when we focus on training that skill for our defenders and midfielders.
Headball is one of those hidden skills to which we may pay little attention. The guide tells us the following:
Headball is used for high passes, both for trying to score and for defending. It increases your chance of a goal when you are attacking with a high pass and it improves your defense against it vise versa.
The goalkeepers will undoubtedly have aerial duels throughout the match. Corners are the first option we think of, but also long passes made by the opposition. So, headball should also be a skill to take into account in the analysis of our goalkeepers or those we want to sign or incorporate from the youth team.
Before criticising my goalkeeper, remember that I've only been playing for a couple of months. So Jerry Kozak does not meet many of the requirements I explained in the first paragraphs. He lacks speed, headball and, especially, endurance. He has a good level of goalkeeping and that means he can focus his training on other areas. However, you can be sure that Kozak will leave my team as soon as his contract runs out. It will be a position to improve at the end of next season.
Kozak has an acceptable level of both goalkeeping and passing. Improvable but enough to play in Division 2. But 21 points of speed and 18 of endurance make him a weak goalkeeper and clearly improvable. If he was in a higher division I would trade him immediately. Playing in Division 2 I can keep him in the squad and wait until the end of his contract so as not to add costs to the squad.
Goalkeeping as a core skill. Passing, speed and endurance as secondary skills to calculate their level. Defence and headball as skills to train as well. A goalkeeper with good numbers in all those skills will make you have well covered one of the key positions in Rabona.
This is my idea of what a goalkeeper in Rabona should be, do you think the same, do you train any additional skills, do you ignore any of the skills I have talked about in this article, let me know in the comments so we can all improve our knowledge of the game!
If you like soccer games and want to try rabona you can do it through my referral link and you and I will receive an extra to help us in the game.
Cover image made with canva.com and headers with cooltext.com.