Round Ball Australia 
Melbourne City goalkeeper Patrick Beach playing the ball out from the back during the Melbourne Derby in Round 2 of the 2024/25 ALM season. Photo: Marcus Robertson/Round Ball Australia
The last couple of rounds in the A-League Men have seen young goalkeepers taking centre stage in some big games – and with disastrous consequences.
Patrick Beach for Melbourne City, Josh Oluwayemi for Wellington Phoenix and Tristan Vidackovich for the Western Sydney Wanderers all looked great previously, but made significant errors that lead to their respective teams conceding goals.
So why are teams using systems that put these young keepers into high-pressure situations? What impact does that have on their mental game and development? And what sort of errors does all this lead to?
Goalkeeper usage in modern football systems
Graphics: Jacob Stevens, created with Flourish
More and more often we are seeing goalkeepers being picked and used for their ball-playing ability over just their prowess as a shot stopper.
Moving the goalkeeper up in possession, placing him between the centre backs and using him as an option in build up, frees up another player – often the extra fullback – to move higher up the pitch into more attacking areas.
Now, using the goalkeeper in build up is nothing new, but what we normally see is it being done out of necessity to beat a high press, or with the other defenders dropping lower to keep the goalkeeper deeper.
This shift towards the keeper being required to step up is interesting, and puts greater emphasis on not turning the ball over and conceding possession, as the goalkeeper is much further out of position.
Ignoring the split in football tactical thinking when it comes to in possession ideology, because there’s enough there for its own article, the faith being shown in young keepers in the A-League reflects widely the approach shown by clubs here to their youngsters in general.
More and more clubs’ squads are skewing younger, and coaches are backing these young players to be difference makers – and often expecting them to perform at a high standard near-immediately.
The same, it would seem, extends to goalkeepers.
But, at least for the young goalkeepers in the A-League, many of them will have come up through the ranks playing in these sort of systems.
Oluwayemi, for instance, spent his youth at Tottenham, Vidackovic had spells in Portugal, and Beach was a key part of the Mariners’ NPL side last season.
In these systems, the young goalkeepers are developing skills comparable to that of outfielders.
If they were taking part in training drills without their gloves on, you would have a hard time spotting the difference between them and their outfield counterparts.
Errors in distribution
The most obvious errors to come from playing young goalkeepers in these systems are errors in distribution – such as we saw from Beach and Oluwayemi.
But the underlying cause isn’t always simply that they’re being asked to play a certain way.
Beach’s errors were very much an illustration of these things going wrong because of systems.
Obviously, City have looked to play him very high, with the wide centre backs and high full backs.
By doing so, City made Beach directly vulnerable to the Victory press, rather than being the last resort should the defensive unit be unable to bypass the press.
While there’s no denying Beach’s talent on the ball, it’s a different thing entirely when you are under the sort of sustained pressure that Victory applied.
And that’s just the thing – it can be a bad system, yes, but the mental game comes into play, too.
When you’re constantly under that pressure, the likelihood of making a mistake compounds, and for keepers, their mistakes typically result in conceding goals.
Oluwayemi’s error to gift Jake Brimmer his first goal was arguably a more clear demonstration of this.
He was tremendous most of the game, and with the way the Phoenix played, he was called into action often to deny goal scoring opportunities.
But that would take its toll on even the most experienced of keepers.
That’s not to say they would all have made the same mistake, but constantly being required to make saves and keep your side in the game wears a player down like little else.
One error then itself can compound and ruin a player’s mental state, especially a young player.
Errors in technique
Graphics: Jacob Stevens, created with Flourish
Breaking down Vidcakovic’s performance over the 90 minutes against Adelaide can fully show the impact that one error can have on a goalkeeper’s continued mentality throughout a match, and that itself then compounds into further issues in technique.
In just the fourth minute of the game, Ethan Alagich had a shot from distance that was seemingly heading safely into the hands of Vidackovic.
He was set up with a solid base, anticipating the shot, and went high to make the routine grab, however misread the flight of the ball.
This resulted in the shot hitting just below the wrists, setting Luka Jovanovic up for a simple tap-in to open the scoring.
Vidackovic buried his head in the ground, accepting that he was at fault for the opener, and it was during Jovanovic’s celebration that a clearer picture of the Wanderer’s struggles was painted.
Not one teammate, defenders especially, got around the young keeper, which just serves to compound the frustration that Vidackovic would have felt after the first goal rolled in.
It is vital for goalkeepers to maintain a clear mind throughout a match, with the emotional impact of a save or an error clouding judgement at times.
In a role where a fraction of a second in reaction time can be the difference between a goal and a save, clarity of the mind is more important than ever.
In the 20th minute Vidackovic faced a cross to the back post with just one opposition player jostling for the ball against his centre back.
He opted for a punch even though the ball was over the head of the only attacking player in a position to take advantage, with no threat present at the back post.
What should have been an easy collect for the 6ft 6” keeper, was turned into an error leading to another goal, with the ball coming off the back of Vidackovic’s fist and hitting Austin Ayoubi on its way into the back of the net.
The incorrect choice was made in this situation. The thought process for crosses should always be: claim first, punch if there is any doubt, but in this scenario the threat from the move was over.
If he had attacked the ball before the path of the striker, a punch would have been required, but his decision making was impacted by the events earlier in the match.
Just seven minutes later, Vidackovic would concede his third of the night through a great strike from Dylan Pierias. Whilst it was a firmly struck volley, the decision-making process appeared to be impacted by earlier incidents in the game.
After the initial free kick smacked the wall, Vidackovic recovers to the centre of his goal as the ball sits up for Pierias. He is in the right position to deal with the incoming shot, however his last step across is a long and heavy stride, rooting himself in the middle of the posts.
As the shot comes in to his left at a saveable height, he is unable to make any adjustments with his feet, which results in a backwards dive where he struggles to generate the required strength in his arms to keep the ball out.
This chance had an xGOT (expected goals on target) value of just 0.08, meaning that even after factoring in the quality of the shot and its location relative to the goal, he would be expected to save this chance 92% of the time.
The impact of an early error compounded in the mind of the young keeper, who has the eyes of Lawrence Thomas peering over his position from the physio table.
It culminated in another incorrect decision with Adelaide’s fourth goal, where Vidackovic set up to collect a through ball instead of rushing to smother the chance.
Zach Clough played a ball that split the Wanderers defence open, and with the weight of the pass it should have been Vidackovic’s ball to claim.
He instead set up early in his shape, hoping that the ball would continue through, and in the end he was caught in between setting up to make the save, or fully committing to win the ball before Pierias could poke it home for his double.
This piece was jointly authored by Will Booth and Jacob Stevens