Tuesday 17 October 2017 12:15, UK
What are the secrets to being one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League? Peter Schemichel revealed all on Monday Night Football.
Schmeichel is regarded as one of the greatest Premier League 'keepers, having won the title five times with Manchester United and kept 128 clean sheets in 310 league appearances.
From starting position to angles and coming out quickly and oversized shirts, the former United goalkeeper explained the key factors behind his success on Monday Night Football...
"My thinking was always to be aggressive, not to take chances, but make the decisions for myself, rather than having players making them for me. Come out quickly, close down the gap, and make sure my defending players around me understood that, so when I am coming out they know I am leaving the goal empty.
"I wanted to be aggressive and take control over those situations that are very difficult when I don't have the ball. If you don't come out you give every opportunity and advantage for that player [the striker] to do what he wants. I wanted to say 'here I am, I am coming out now', more often than not I was rushing out, stopping and looking at the guy…
"I found it important that I took control. And once you get a reputation you put the thinking and doubt onto the striker. It's the same as not crossing balls into the box towards Thibaut Courtois; if they got one-on-one with me I wanted them to have a little bit of a think about it, just a split second, that would be enough to get into my perfect position and just wait."
"I had a coach before I moved to Manchester United who drilled with me, hour after hour, he took me all around the 18-yard box and he would stop me and say 'where are you, where is the goal?'. By doing that repetition I always knew where the goal was so I got my angles right.
"You have to know where your goal is. You can rush out but if you rush out and the goal is open…You have to know your angles and work really hard on angles. It's such an important thing."
I always used to have colourful shirts and they were always one size too big
"It was part of my game. I used to play handball and be in goal and you use your legs as much as your arms. You never catch anything. I was used to that and I always felt that I didn't care how I saved the ball. You save it and then if it goes back in play, you deal with the next situation."
"You have to get a good starting position in your goal to be aggressive. If you are on the line it's very difficult because it's a long distance just to the penalty spot. I was nearly always on the six-yard line, I found that was my perfect position. I accepted that if I get chipped I get chipped, and just move on, and that happened a few times. But the benefits I got were much bigger."
"I always stayed on my feet for as long as I could, but I wanted to make myself so big that the opponent couldn't see the goal and that means getting your angles perfectly right and then standing up. I always used to have colourful shirts and they were always one size too big because when I lifted my arms the shirt would go like that [drop down], but today the goalkeepers look small.
"I always used to like that, because when they look away from the ball and up at me they will think 'where is the goal?'. That was the thinking behind it."
"It was the way I played. The way we played we liked to have the ball and commit players forward. There is no other way of committing that many players to control the game than to play high up the pitch and if you have a goalkeeper that doesn't come out you don't come high up the pitch. The further up you can push the whole team the more bodies you have up there to create chances and score goals.
"Sometimes you should take chances. If we have been under pressure from a corner-kick for example, and they had everyone up, even though we would only have one player up the pitch I would kick the ball as long and high as I could for the sole purpose of having the team rushing back. More often than not nothing came of it, maybe we got a throw-in, but then we win 70 yards. There is a time and place, when you do it in your own half both players have to be on the same wavelength. It has to be perfect."
"Goalkeepers now must be football players as well. As soon as the team is not defending he becomes an outfield player so he needs to have really good technique with his feet and be able to distribute the ball. You must be a bit arrogant. You have to tell yourself you have never made a mistake, even though you have made one that cost a goal, you have to tell yourself you have never made one."
