You Can't Block What You Can't See

A ball tracking drill to help keep your eye on the ball

Look at these photos of professional soccer goalies Hugo Lloris and David Ochoa.

What’s the first thing you notice?

Hugo Lloris

David Ochoa

It’s their eyes.

Their eyes follow the ball right into their block and in the photo of Ochoa he is watching the ball go past him out of bounds.

My favorite line from Karate Kid 3 is “a man can't see, he can't fight” because it translates so well to the goalie position.

You can’t block what you can’t see.

We want to train ourselves to always follow the ball into our block.

Of course, there are going to be times when we flinch or close our eyes right before making a save. If I spent the time I could find photos of world-class soccer goalies flinching and closing their eyes. It’s going to happen. We just want to reduce how many times it happens.

This is a drill I came up with to help us keep our eyes on the ball throughout the block.

Gear

Take any ball and on each face of the 6 faces use a big permanent marker to write a capital letter on each face.

The letter should take up most of the face of the ball. And the letter should be unique enough that it is easy to identify. So something like X, Y, S, T, O, B, L.

Drill

Beginner/Dryland

The beginner drill is to start on dry land. Have two goalies stand about 5 meters apart and chest pass the ball to the other goalie like you were putting the ball into an upper corner of a goal.

Let the blocking goalie know which side you are starting on and then alternate each side until completion.

Don’t put it too far out of reach but just enough that the blocking goalie has to fully extend their arm to the “corner” to block the ball.

They need to keep their eye on the ball and call out the letter they see as they block.

We’re using a chest pass to reduce spin on the ball so the blocking goalie can easily identify the letter.

To make the drill harder you can start adding more spin.

This can also be used as a dry land war-up drill before getting in the water for practice or a game.

In the Water/More Advanced

Now we move to the water.

Start out with a two-hand pass to reduce spin and to practice tracking the ball while lunging. Depending on the shooter’s leg strength. This could be a chest pass again or a two-handed overhead soccer-style throw.

I’ve found that the two handed soccer style throw works the best in the water. It’s easier to add more power to the “shot” without adding more spin. And you can easily add spin or reduce spin using the two-handed soccer style throw approach.

The same thing as before, we keep progressing to more spin and harder throws as we get better and stronger.

There’ll come a point where the spin is too much. So back off the power of the shot and try to slow the spin enough so that the goalie is still able to perform a proper lunge and is slightly challenged to read the letter off the ball.

Then you can add weight belts or weight belts plus long t-shirts to make the drill more challenging and to add one element of conditioning.

You can do a round or two of letting the goalie know which side you are starting on and alternating each side.

Then you can do a round or two of not telling the goalie which side you are going to. When doing this you don’t have to stick to the pattern of alternating sides on each throw. Mix it up so the blocking goalie doesn't not know which side the ball is going to.

Does Accuracy Matter?

For the beginner portion and dryland portion, I care about accuracy. I really want the goalie concentrating on that ball and following it with their eyes. There is minimal spin and they don’t have to eggbeater so it should be easier to focus on the ball.

Once we get in the water and we add more spin to the ball I don’t care about being 100% accurate. The whole act of trying to have them call the letter out keeps their eyes on the ball all the way into their block. I want them to try their hardest, but if I see their eyes open the entire way then I’m fine with them being inaccurate.

We’re building muscle memory so when it’s a real shot their eyes just naturally follow the ball into their block.

If you have any questions or tweaks to the drill that you like then let us all know in the comments below.