Between the Sticks

By: Sean | June 5th, 2009

If you play soccer long enough, it is inevitable. You get to the pitch, you stretch a little, do some juggles–the usual routine. The rest of the team starts to show up, you joke around, you pass the ball a bit. At some point you take note of your teammates and realize that your squad count is low and somebody is missing. With just the slightest hint of dread, you then realize that the player who is missing is the guy with the goalkeeper gloves. As the referee calls for the captains, other teammates notice it, too. My experience is that very few recreational football teams have a goalie corps seven players deep. Kudos to your squad if you do. It is frequently the case that the depth chart consists of the Guy Who is the Goalkeeper and the Guy Who Plays Goalkeeper When He Has To. So what happens when both of those players are unable to play? If you play soccer long enough, it is inevitable. The five most feared words in football:

“Will you play keeper today?”

As a field player since age eight, the sum of my goalkeeping experience consisted of one match during indoor soccer two years ago against some high schoolers–does that really count? I’m not sure–and then never. As a team manager, I have an easy out on this: “Hey, Somebody Who Isn’t Me, you’re playing keeper today.” But a recent combination of work conflicts, administrative issues, and unfortunate circumstances left my team Rangers without the usual three guys who have more experience than one indoor match against high school kids. So I did the only thing I could…I approached one of my guys (we’ll call him Jim for this post) and laid it all out: “Jim, we don’t have a keeper. Would you mind playing between the sticks today?” I should have stopped talking right there, but the words kept coming out. “If you will play the first half, I’ll be keeper for the second half.” Because Jim is awesome, he didn’t even flinch. “Sure, I’ll do it. Do you have gloves?” And so, just like that, I would soon be fulfilling the Second Thing Every Recreational Footballer Should Do. Stupid Weekend Warrior blogger!

Jim played lights out and kept his house clean in the sweltering, 90 degree temperatures. He made two dynamite saves, came off his line to scoop up another half-dozen balls, and he has a decent punt, too. The only time our side was breached was when the opposition caught us on a counter, flooded the box and outnumbered our backs. Nobody in our league could have prevented it and so, as the official blew the half to an end, we were down 0-1. I jogged over to Jim as he made his way to the shade of the sidelines. “Great job, Jim. Thanks for doing that.” I secretly hoped that he had discovered a new love for this position and would offer to stay for another 45 minutes. “So…do you want to play out in the field?” I asked. He indicated he did and frankly, he had earned it. I couldn’t not give him my place on the left wing. It was time for me to man(ager) up and do the right thing. “Fair enough, I’ll tell the ref we have a keeper change.”

At 5′-6 7/8″, I believe I was the shortest person at the field…with the exception of a group of toddlers and perhaps the middle schooler watching his dad. Thus, the irony of Lil’ Seanny pulling on the sexy purple tunic that was two sizes too big and shoving his hands into gloves for the first time since the last snow was not lost on my Rangers. “Uh, new keeper?” someone remarked. I’m not sure if it was a statement or a question. I was just hoping it wasn’t the build-up to an epic joke that would last 45 minutes plus stoppage time.

I left the team and walked alone to my new position. My first order of business was to see if I could even reach the crossbar. With a leap, I could. That was good to know. I remembered seeing keepers on television clang their boots against the posts, so I did that, too. Actually, it is funny how much of a position you can watch over and over again and still realize you don’t have a clue what to do until you are forced to do it. I also knew I had to project some trace iota of confidence or the opposition would smell inexperience like a chum to sharks, so I started doing keeper-like movements to demonstrate my awesome lateral mobility. My central enforcer came out to keep from me overthinking this experience. We’ll call him Bodogchombo (not his real name). Bodog kept the conversation light and cracked a few jokes. Soon the other twenty players filtered onto the field and before I knew it, the ref was asking: “Ready, keeper?” It took a second to realize he was talking to me. I gave my best casual-but-too-casual acknowledgment of his request, leaned forward, and took a deep breath.

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The field looked totally different from how I usually saw it, comfortably ensconced on the left near midfield. Everything was now so symmetrical and oddly, the kickoff seemed really far away. A scrum in the middle of the field made it hard to see who had the ball. I started walking toward the edge of my box, often turning around to see how far away the frame was from my position. The abbreviated stream of consciousness version of my first seven minutes as a keeper goes something like this: “Looks like we have the ball…man, this polyester shirt is warm…uh-oh, is the ball coming this way?…Bodog kicked it away…ouch! Crunching tackle…that’s gonna leave a mark [yes, I quote my own posts to myself--ha!]…is that guy offsides?…what if the ref doesn’t see he is offsides?…does this shirt make my ass look big?…uh-oh, here comes a cross…oh good, Mike kicked it out…should I be standing on the six or on the eighteen?…is the match almost over yet?…OH SHIT HERE COMES THE BALL!” My first touch of the ball, perhaps seven minutes in, involved me sprinting forward to scoop up the striker’s dribble, which was too hard and got away from him. I immediately looked down to make sure I was still within my box, relieved to see I was, and then remembered to do that two-armed keeper wrap I’d seen before.

My first “save” was greeted by widespread relieved/sardonic cheers from Rangers. I soon realized I hadn’t done a keeper punt since, um, 2006. It dawned on me it would really suck if I pulled my hamstring when I booted it out. Jim had dropped back and I opted to one-arm sling it to him, which I did with unusual aplomb. Save Two followed about five minutes later when their other forward got free and I hesitated too long between staying on my line (bad) and rushing forward to cut his angle (good). I ended up doing both and then had to make a right shin reflex save to keep the onion bag empty. More cheers, this time more relieved than sardonic. “You have got to come faster on those,” Bodog urged. I nodded, heart racing, and then got my first corner kick. The middies crashed back, took the ball out of the air, and cleared the field. Such is the life of a keeper, I soon realized. Long, long periods of waiting followed by several seconds of sheer panic and reaction. I think I prefer the lifestyle of a midfielder, which usually involves being constantly exhausted and gasping for air.

Eventually, our side equalized and my elation at not losing anymore was immediately tempered by a new dread: If Seanny flubs it now and lets in a howler with the score 1-1, then he would REALLY suck, like own-goal levels of suckage. Thus did the proverbial elephant in the room grow just a little larger and slap me in the face with his big, flappy ear. I smacked my gloves together and spit into them (because that’s what keepers do) and hoped for the final whistle. Another collection later on and I mustered the courage to try my first goalie punt. It was not impressive. As I dropped the ball, I forgot whether I kicked it on the drop or let it bounce once and strike it on the rebound. That hesitation threw my mechanics off and it went just twenty yards, with the bounce. I apologized to my backs and they just laughed it off.

I got six more touches on the ball, of which five of those could be loosely interpreted as save-like moves. I had to “make myself big” around the sixty minute mark when the wing tried to cut on me and my awesome 6′-0 1/2″ (I measured) wingspan caused him to shank his shot wide right past the post. I ran forward and snared a few crosses, which now seems weird because those freakishly huge field players should have been killing me in the air…but whatever. A last shot on the near post around minute 88 landed comfortably into my gut and for a half-second I thought I felt it try and sneak under my arms and roll toward the net mouth, but I did the clutch again and ran quickly from the woodwork. “Two more minutes. That’s it,” Bodog said. Almost home and dry. My final goalie punt was more organized as I hit it at the edge of my box. I choose to believe it went fifty yards (with bounce), over the head of their back and allowed my striker James to run at them. We didn’t score again, but we didn’t let one in, either. 1-1.

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With that, I was no longer a 38 year old goalie virgin. As the other team came by to shake hands, I heard their “Good game, Keeper,” in a new tone. Eight touches and I was done. Here’s the rub, though: What really made the difference wasn’t me. It was the other ten guys in front of me in the yellow kits, not me in the purple one, who put bone-crunching after bone-crunching tackle on the opposition and kept them from getting off a killer shot. Perhaps motivated by the strategy of Don’t Let the Ball Get Anywhere Near Sean, every one of my players went Old School and turned up the intensity sevenfold in the second half. I saw slide tackles at the edge of my box that could be used in instructional DVDs. I saw tight marking, I heard organized chatter, and I thought I saw or two guys requiring orthopedic work afterwards. We weren’t dirty, just highly motivated. I saw our team from a whole new perspective and I want to believe that perspective will serve as motivation come the next match. It can get awfully lonely between the sticks but it can also remind you that football is still about all eleven players, not just the last one in the sexy purple tunic…