Goalkeeper training for parents in Colorado

DENVER - April 2, 2014 - PRLog -- There are a number of "goalkeeper academies" being born almost every week in Colorado. However, this is not over yet, there will be MORE academies that will come up pretty soon. So, I decided to have a series of blogs related to GOALKEEPER TRAINING FOR PARENTS in Colorado (http://just4keepers.com/goalkeeper-training-colorado/).

The reason for these blogs is to educate parents who are familiar with goalkeeping training in "theory" or by simply watching some club trainings, camps, read books or watched it on TV,  but they have never played this position before. I am hoping to give plenty of things to think about when you are looking at training programs.

I am currently a Professional goalkeeper coach for Just4keepers or J4K (http://www.just4keepers.net/) the world's largest goalkeeper academy.   But before I joined J4K, I was contracted by several pro teams in South America to train their keepers during their off season or special occasions.


J4K goalkeeper academy in Colorado started with one goalkeeper academy in Denver, then within a year, we now have academies in Boulder, Highlands ranch, Denver and soon in Colorado Springs, and Steamboats springs Colorado.

Since J4K Colorado started training, a number of parents and goalkeepers came to us looking for additional training and their number one complaint is that their kids WERE NOT GETTING adequate training where they are. But my first questions was, how do you know the training was not adequate?.

FACTS:

Many times parents simply see how much fun their kids are having at their goalkeeper training, and if you ask the kids, they will tell you that it was fun. To me that is SUPER important part of their training, after all, games are supposed to be fun. In fact, there are several Goalkeeper academies/ club training programs in Colorado that are AWESOME at entertaining kids and providing fun games while they do their goalkeeper training.

Furthermore, there are so many goalkeeper programs who only care to have a large number of keepers to make more money. There is nothing wrong with making money but you need to figure out if this training is more like a BABYSITTING company rather than a training facility where progress and results ARE EXPECTED instead of entertainment.

There are other programs in Colorado who have few Professional players come to their training, sign  autographs give few pointers to the kids and leave; that is so inspiring for the kids and make these GK programs look like a million bucks and usually those are the programs who bring the largest amount of kids and have several goalkeeper coaches and a couple of directors walking around and helping during the training. It also gives the impression that these are the BEST programs around because of an affiliation with XYZ pro team or pro players.

Key points to understand goalkeeper training:

Goalkeeper programs will always tell you that they train your kids like professionals do, but  as a former Professional goalkeeper and understanding how I train Pro goalkeepers around the world, they usually have 2 and sometimes 4 goalkeepers training together. I can personally tell you that IT IS DIFFICULT to coach many goalkeepers at the same time, and keep their attention, avoid distractions and get a GOOD QUALITY TRAINING.    Remember, goalkeepers is a UNIQUE position so it requires SPECIALIZED training and not a "one size fits all" kind of training.  ATTENTION TO DETAILS is very important on a goalkeeper training but you will not get that much attention when you are among a large group.
As you know, if it's not fun why do it?  But if the goalkeeper's progress is MINIMAL and the training is not CHALLENGING,  how is it possible to move up to the next level?  by luck?, or by getting close to a coach that likes the keeper (even if he is a terrible keeper)?....
As a parent, you must understand the difference between a goalkeeper training that will meet the expectations of the 21st century goalkeeper or a training with TONS of drills that kids like to do, get divided in separate sections, then at the end of the session they play fun games. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between intense/ challenging training and a training that is set up to spend one hour and look busy in front of the parents. Look out for that.
Last, this blows my mind every time. Most youth clubs and goalkeeper's organization in Colorado have many parents believing that a goalkeeper at the ACADEMY level, SELECT TEAM, ODP etc,  will be receiving a TOP training. however,  my question is, why are these clubs or organizations are ONLY PROVIDING "TOP TRAINING" to the keepers in "TOP" teams and not ALL the keepers; and of course that comes with higher prices and fees for the parents.  It is a fact, that if a top training is provided to the kids from an early age, you will get great goalkeepers within few years. But this is NOT what I see in Colorado or around the US.

Next blog I will have key points regarding coaches and the so called BEST training in select teams and academies.

But in the mean time, I simply want to share these key points with you because of the large number of parents who are actually trying to help their kids become better goalkeepers. Parents and keepers are tired of going to their games and get scored on all the time and look like they are lost in the goal.   But their lack of knowledge on how to train a goalkeeper and the significant amount of clubs and camps that are being born recently is starting to get confusing.

Also think about this, in my travels around the world training goalkeepers and even my own training programs growing up in South America, I have observed that from an early age, goalkeepers in other Countries are training harder than our young keepers in the US and Colorado. The intensity level and hard drills are simply difficult, but the young keepers consider that fun,  as results young keepers are doing very well.

Please take a look on how J4K Colorado trains a 9 year old girl in our academy in Colorado. J4K trains ALL of our keepers, no matter what your level is, the same way and intensity as the video is shown.  As result we get, so many goalkeepers making HUGE improvements in a short period of time. There is a reason why, J4K worldwide has more than 400 students move on to play professional. There is NO ACADEMY IN THE WORLD that has ever done that.

If you would like to see MORE on how we train our goalkeepers please see our YOUTUBE CHANNEL (https://www.youtube.com/user/J4KColorado). also if you would like to bring your kids for a FREE SESSION please give us a call or emails us to set up a session.

303-907-9389

zurilozano@just4keepers.com

FACEBOOK (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Just4Keepers-Colorado/2027...)

J4K PROFESSIONAL GLOVES ONLINE (http://www.soccerglovedeals.com/)