Andreas Köpke has enjoyed a successful career, winning the World Cup in 1990 and the European Championship in 1996, when he was also voted as the best goalkeeper on the planet. The goalkeeping coach for the German national team, the current world champions, spoke to DFB.de about the ways goalkeepers look for giveaways, why young goalkeepers are so experienced nowadays and what he thinks of "eye-tracking glasses."
DFB.de: Andreas Köpke, why is experience currently of such great importance to goalkeepers?
Andreas Köpke: I don’t think young goalkeepers would like to admit that. But that’s just how it is: The more you are confronted with certain situations, the better you can then deal with them. Obviously experience helps me know where the attacker is going to aim for, and helps me make a more informed decision on whether to come out for the next long ball. Simply because I have more experience. Experience is an extremely important factor, but even our younger goalkeepers have quite a lot of experience these days.
DFB.de: In 2006, you had two goalkeepers in Jens Lehmann and Oliver Kahn both aged 36. In Brazil 2014, in contrast, you had Manuel Neuer and Ron-Robert Zieler, aged 28 and 25 respectively.
Köpke: Both of whom already had a lot of experience. Thanks to the youth academy training centres, the Junior Bundesliga and the early start in professional keeper training, young goalkeepers nowadays are able to collect much more valuable experience early on in their careers. The total number of games in which the young keepers feature is greater than back in my day. I had my best years when I was over 30. This peak in a keeper’s career comes a lot earlier now. Can any keeper in the world show better awareness for the game than Manuel Neuer did in certain situations in the World Cup round of 16 against Algeria? There were so many incidents in the game, lots of which one-on-ones: Either you’re a hero or you concede a goal. Had he made just one mistake in any given situation in that game, had he come out a split second too late, he would have been sent off. Manuel assessed every single situation perfectly and showed no weaknesses whatsoever. Besides, Manu was only 24 at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when we gave him the number one jersey and he played in his first big tournament.
DFB.de: In the early 90s, Roland Wohlfahrt, Anthony Yeboah and Ulf Kirsten were the biggest Bundesliga strikers. Were you able to "read" any of them, so to speak?
Köpke: I don’t want to talk about individual strikers. But it is true that the more experienced a keeper is, the sooner he can tell where an attacker will try and place the ball, either through the position of the standing leg, or the way he approaches the shot. Those are the giveaways for me. It’s also crucial to be aware of the player’s position in relation to the goal, and to consider whether he’s right or left-footed. Everything plays a role. Sometimes you pull off a save and don’t know yourself exactly how you got to it, how you managed to show that kind of reflex. It makes me mad when a keeper watches a shot and doesn’t react. We want to take action, take a step towards the ball. When you play like that, you’re more likely to get that crucial hand, fingertip or foot to the ball. If I just watch and don’t try to react at all to the situation leading up to the shot, I’m never going to get a foot or a hand to the ball.
DFB.de: The DFB-Research Award will be presented to Dr. Florian Schultz today, the man who looked into how goalkeepers anticipate shots. The results: Experienced goalkeepers recognise sooner and more accurately where the shot is going. Is experience something you can teach? Can you educate a young keeper on the right way to anticipate a shot?
Köpke: Nowadays there are more opportunities to work with videos. Our priority is to analyse our own game. What’s my positioning like, how do I confront the ball? But even when we study the way strikers position themselves before a shot, high-tech video analysis helps us achieve a lot. Every striker has his favourite type of shot. Our scouting team and our team at the Sporthochschule in Cologne see the game through our eyes. They're people who know what they're doing. There are short video sequences, maybe ten or fifteen minutes long, that our goalkeepers watch many times. Manu won't need to watch five or six videos of our EURO 2016 opponents Ukraine, but he'll watch brief clips in order to get to know the opposition attackers the best he can. You have to think about set pieces, penalties and all other shots. Science and practice work very closely together nowadays. I'm a big fan of the congress and I'm sure that a few theoretical insights will soon be very useful in practice.
DFB.de: Have you had the German goalkeepers training with eye-tracking glasses yet?
Köpke: Our problem is time. We have a very, very strict schedule, but we have tried out those kinds of things before. I'm always interested in new ways to improve performance, but lots of things don't work immediately. You need time. These are things teams need to adjust to.
DFB.de: Dr. Florian Schultz focused on goalkeepers' anticipation on shots. Do goalkeepers need to constantly be aware?
Köpke: Exactly. You can’t switch off anymore, so goalkeepers' performance levels have increased massively. The game has pretty much doubled in pace since my day, and you need to always be ready to react.
created by mmc/dw&ac
Andreas Köpke has enjoyed a successful career, winning the World Cup in 1990 and the European Championship in 1996, when he was also voted as the best goalkeeper on the planet. The goalkeeping coach for the German national team, the current world champions, spoke to DFB.de about the ways goalkeepers look for giveaways, why young goalkeepers are so experienced nowadays and what he thinks of "eye-tracking glasses."
DFB.de: Andreas Köpke, why is experience currently of such great importance to goalkeepers?
Andreas Köpke: I don’t think young goalkeepers would like to admit that. But that’s just how it is: The more you are confronted with certain situations, the better you can then deal with them. Obviously experience helps me know where the attacker is going to aim for, and helps me make a more informed decision on whether to come out for the next long ball. Simply because I have more experience. Experience is an extremely important factor, but even our younger goalkeepers have quite a lot of experience these days.
DFB.de: In 2006, you had two goalkeepers in Jens Lehmann and Oliver Kahn both aged 36. In Brazil 2014, in contrast, you had Manuel Neuer and Ron-Robert Zieler, aged 28 and 25 respectively.
Köpke: Both of whom already had a lot of experience. Thanks to the youth academy training centres, the Junior Bundesliga and the early start in professional keeper training, young goalkeepers nowadays are able to collect much more valuable experience early on in their careers. The total number of games in which the young keepers feature is greater than back in my day. I had my best years when I was over 30. This peak in a keeper’s career comes a lot earlier now. Can any keeper in the world show better awareness for the game than Manuel Neuer did in certain situations in the World Cup round of 16 against Algeria? There were so many incidents in the game, lots of which one-on-ones: Either you’re a hero or you concede a goal. Had he made just one mistake in any given situation in that game, had he come out a split second too late, he would have been sent off. Manuel assessed every single situation perfectly and showed no weaknesses whatsoever. Besides, Manu was only 24 at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when we gave him the number one jersey and he played in his first big tournament.
DFB.de: In the early 90s, Roland Wohlfahrt, Anthony Yeboah and Ulf Kirsten were the biggest Bundesliga strikers. Were you able to "read" any of them, so to speak?
Köpke: I don’t want to talk about individual strikers. But it is true that the more experienced a keeper is, the sooner he can tell where an attacker will try and place the ball, either through the position of the standing leg, or the way he approaches the shot. Those are the giveaways for me. It’s also crucial to be aware of the player’s position in relation to the goal, and to consider whether he’s right or left-footed. Everything plays a role. Sometimes you pull off a save and don’t know yourself exactly how you got to it, how you managed to show that kind of reflex. It makes me mad when a keeper watches a shot and doesn’t react. We want to take action, take a step towards the ball. When you play like that, you’re more likely to get that crucial hand, fingertip or foot to the ball. If I just watch and don’t try to react at all to the situation leading up to the shot, I’m never going to get a foot or a hand to the ball.
DFB.de: The DFB-Research Award will be presented to Dr. Florian Schultz today, the man who looked into how goalkeepers anticipate shots. The results: Experienced goalkeepers recognise sooner and more accurately where the shot is going. Is experience something you can teach? Can you educate a young keeper on the right way to anticipate a shot?
Köpke: Nowadays there are more opportunities to work with videos. Our priority is to analyse our own game. What’s my positioning like, how do I confront the ball? But even when we study the way strikers position themselves before a shot, high-tech video analysis helps us achieve a lot. Every striker has his favourite type of shot. Our scouting team and our team at the Sporthochschule in Cologne see the game through our eyes. They're people who know what they're doing. There are short video sequences, maybe ten or fifteen minutes long, that our goalkeepers watch many times. Manu won't need to watch five or six videos of our EURO 2016 opponents Ukraine, but he'll watch brief clips in order to get to know the opposition attackers the best he can. You have to think about set pieces, penalties and all other shots. Science and practice work very closely together nowadays. I'm a big fan of the congress and I'm sure that a few theoretical insights will soon be very useful in practice.
DFB.de: Have you had the German goalkeepers training with eye-tracking glasses yet?
Köpke: Our problem is time. We have a very, very strict schedule, but we have tried out those kinds of things before. I'm always interested in new ways to improve performance, but lots of things don't work immediately. You need time. These are things teams need to adjust to.
DFB.de: Dr. Florian Schultz focused on goalkeepers' anticipation on shots. Do goalkeepers need to constantly be aware?
Köpke: Exactly. You can’t switch off anymore, so goalkeepers' performance levels have increased massively. The game has pretty much doubled in pace since my day, and you need to always be ready to react.
