Confessions Of A Goalkeeper

Of course, the hot topic of recent days has been about goalkeeper Loris Karius. From there as a former goalkeeper, myself, it opened up a lot of memories of professional goalkeepers who have made high profile errors as well as it opened up old wounds of myself being in that position, on a number of occasions.

“They say you have to be mental to be a goalkeeper.” Growing up that was what I heard all the time. And to be honest I never questioned who “they” were because it wasn’t something you did as a young player but now I’ve had time to reflect. You do not need to be mental to be a goalkeeper. From my experiences, the main prerequisite for being a goalkeeper is not being mental at all, but those who say this are just one word short. You need mental strength, being mental just seems to be a happy coincidence.

Growing up, I have always looked up towards German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, as he remarkably epitomised the words, mental strength. When you look back in his illustrious career he had a rocky start to his career as well as shared a number of downs, despite the deficits. He worked hard and dictated his own destiny, eventually became a top goalkeepers that inspired the likes of Manuel Neuer.

Growing up, always been defaulted to play goalkeeper due to overweight fitness issues and limited technical abilities. Regardless of those deficits, always keen to be involve and play a role to the best in the sport. As time when on learning how play goalkeeper with various sets of people. From high school fellows, mates from park, brothers friends, and so on. I learn that winning was everything due to all of those environments I played in. So in that I build a reputation of being a ruthless and unforgiving individual on the court and on the field, regardless of the situation, like Mad Jens Lehmann.

However as time went on, I realised why all of us were so competitive and willing to break people spiritually. Because we were products of a unrefined system that doesn't allow us to filter various situations. Like, "Hey this is just a friendly, take it easy." or "This has 3 points at stake for the school, and the classic, "Friendly but maruah on the line". From there, there was a point where the joy of playing football died over time, when a mistake happens that causes relationships between friends and brothers to break. And it worsen when the mistakes came consistently without having an analog teacher role model in the team or system to assist you to climb back up to a level during those terrible times, you only had you to rely on, and it is an unforgiving cold dark place to rot, especially when everyone is witch hunting you.

I remember back in High School, I was the default starting goalkeeper for the school due to the fact there was no one who can specialise in that position. Mind you, I was a loner who usually hanged out at the library reading books and wasn't the most popular when it comes to the sports people. But I slowly came out of the shell in later years, to try something different.

Back to the story, had a good pre-season with the team, after a number of friendlies that we racked in two clean sheets out of two games. Then the game to forget came during the district competition, had an excellent first 20 minutes. But it all got burn down when I made a blunder, and drew first blood. Eventually loss, 7-0, it hurt like hell. But what even hurt even more, is that the whole team blamed it all on me, then was kicked off the team, never to return or allow to prove myself.

Growing up watching football, always been lead to believe that sports, especially football was a team game. However the broken system that we have here in Malaysian schools and to an extent society produces a specific individual to carry the team not a building a team to carry the team itself. This broken system inadvertently creates a caste system among children, teenagers, growing up in school, playing sports, individualistically. Never wanting to create a bond between people in a community in school.

Looking at Jens Lehmann, how he climbed back up to become a quality goalkeeper is due to the fact he was a part of a social and professional culture that embraces each other as long as you are committed to the community that you play for. Hence why he was beloved at the clubs he played for. If only children, teenagers, adolescences, have access to be a part of a cultural ecosystem like that, not only we can produce decent players but also produce better human beings.

Sadly, growing up and talking to people who had similar experiences at their respective schools, only thing we remember from the district competition is, we get to skip the subject classes we dislike, the funny guy on the bus, the skilful player that scores the goals, and the 'cikgu guru' who promises us Nasi Lemak if we win game. Everything else in between faded memory of a broken system.

And as a goalkeeper it was an experience, but it an experience to learn from and climb up further. However, can you imagine those who aren't so tough mentally? Imagine how broken, they are. I sincerely hope they pull through and rise above.