Feet (not hands), X-rays and seat-belts: How you scout – and train – a goalkeeper

“When coaches at different clubs ask me about goalkeepers now, the first thing they always ask is: ‘How good is he with the ball at his feet?’.”

Martyn Margetson, goalkeeping coach for the England men’s national team and Championship club Swansea City, sighs as he thinks about that question.

“Yes, of course, they’ve got to be able to deal with the ball at their feet now. But I think there are more important skills to goalkeeping than that. Because, for me, the fundamentals of goalkeeping are the ability to keep the ball out of the net, the ability to make good decisions tactically, then having the skill set where they can deal with anything from a technical point of view.”

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The role and profile of goalkeepers has emerged as a hot topic during this summer’s transfer window, bearing in mind that Tottenham Hotspur, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion and Burnley have all paid substantial fees to strengthen that position, and it is only a matter of time before another Premier League club, Manchester United, do the same.

Although the importance of having a good ’keeper has rarely been overlooked, the expectations around what they should be able to do have changed greatly over the past decade. Goalkeepers play today in a way that would have been unthinkable not so long ago. So much so that their biggest asset may no longer be their hands.

“I have one core quality and that is my feet,” Bart Verbruggen, a 20-year-old who has just joined Brighton for £16.3million ($20.7m) from Anderlecht in Belgium, said last year. “I feel very comfortable on the ball, I excel at that.”

Verbruggen will need to be good with his feet at Brighton given the game of risk and reward their coach Roberto De Zerbi likes to play when building up from