The goalkeeper has the most diversified set of responsibilities out of any other football player. Constantly improving all the skills needed so you can live up to those responsibilities takes time, commitment and development. The following tips should help.

Spend most of your time on the field monitoring the ball instead of trying to figure out where your opponents are. It’s the ball you have to keep from the goal and the ball should be your first priority. This will mean leaving your box at times to clear it, and that is the time to do a quick check to make sure opponents won’t rush you to take advantage of the momentary vulnerability of an open box. But other than that, keep your eyes on the ball.

Avoid hesitating while your opponent runs up on your goal, especially when it puts you in a one on one situation. Make yourself as big as you can and rush your opponent. This will force them to react faster and they won’t have time to create a complete strategy. This will give you a definite edge.

Work hard on individual techniques when you practice, but when you are in the game, forget the technique and play with confidence. Your muscle memory will pick up from the practice so you don’t have to think so much about it. If you make a mistake, you can adjust yourself and continue the game. This is much better than holding yourself back and making the mistake of not taking an appropriate action.

When you monitor the ball, rush up big to meet your opponent and act with confidence, you will become unstoppable as a goalkeeper. When you can offer these skills to your team, the word will quickly get out that you are one of the best and the opposing teams will be the ones that hesitate when they are up against you.

No matter how good of a goalkeeper you are, there is always room for improvement. Even the World Cup Winners still set performance goals for themselves to continue to grow and improve in their game. Knowing this, you will want to work hard on increasing your own performance. The following top tips should help.

Always play at 100% whether it’s a practice, scrimmage or actual game. There is always a time to slow down and focus on techniques, but if you only practice at only 60% of your performance, you will do well to bring 70% performance to games. Instead, do 100% every time so when it does matter, you don’t have to push to go the distance and end up falling short instead.

Be open about admitting your weaknesses, at least to your teammates and coaches. No one can help you increase your performance when you are busy trying to cover up what you are weak at. Instead, admit where you could use the most work and rely on the support and encouragement of your teammates and coaches to help you strengthen the areas that need it most.

Finally, set realistic goals. You will find it is easier and more productive to reach smaller goals than to shoot for the moon, work on everything and perfect nothing. A series of small improvements can lead up to significantly increased performances overall. With this in mind, give yourself a break and only worry about what is most attainable before going for the next big step.

When you play at 100% of your game, admit weaknesses and set small goals, you will notice your performance will increase at an incredible rate. Your teammates and coaches will love to see you bringing such a strong position to the team. You will feel great knowing that not only doing your best, but your true best is yet to come.

Many times when you think of the top goalkeeper skills, you might think of techniques, how someone kicks or handles high catches, but the truth of the matter is that the top skills goalkeepers must have to win the game go much deeper than knowing how to do a certain move right. If you can develop these skills, the techniques will easily catch up.

Physical ability is such an important skill that working out with plyometrics, stretching, a medicine ball and short burst sprints will do far more good than spending time running for miles on end with your teammates. This is because as a goalkeeper, you need to be fast, strong and flexible. You do not need to be able to run for three miles, only for short bursts. When you focus your attention on increasing your physical ability in a way that will enhance specific goalkeeper responsibilities, you will improve your overall game by leaps and bounds.

Mental ability is the next skill to work on improving. This means to increase focus in the game to improve your strategic thinking abilities and even doing mind bending puzzles to keep your mind nimble to think quickly under pressure. As a goalkeeper, you may only have seconds to think of how to respond. Developing your mental prowess will give you a definite edge over your competition.

The ability to analyze your own game is another skill that is commonly left out of goalkeepers list of talents to develop. While it is not always fun to critique yourself this skill will help develop strengths far and above goalkeepers who would prefer to blame teammates for mistakes instead. To help, record each game, analyze it and work on what needs improvements in upcoming practices.

When you improve your physical and mental ability and constantly analyze your performance for what you can improve upon, you will notice your game gets better all the time. It won’t be long before the word is out that you are a goalkeeper worth watching out for. Just don’t let the success go to your head.