The Goal That Wasn't His Fault — and the One That Was

Nine goals went in. Here's roughly how that breaks down on an average Saturday.

Two or three were good shots he had very little chance on. Three or four came from broken defense — a missed slide, a blown clear, a man left alone eight yards out. One took a deflection off a stick and changed direction. And one or two were genuinely his: out of position, hands low, beaten near post on a shot he should have had.

Your goalie knows which ones. They always do. What he frequently doesn't have yet is the ability to hold both facts at once — that most of them weren't his, and that some of them were.

That's the skill. And the awkward part for a parent is that you're almost the worst-placed person to teach it.

Why you shouldn't be the one making the call

You can't actually see it. From the sideline you can't see the shooter's hips, the traffic in the crease, where his defense was supposed to be. A goal that looks soft from a folding chair is frequently a screen you couldn't see. This is the single most common source of unfair parent commentary in this sport.

Your verdict carries too much weight. If you say it wasn't his fault, he stops believing your assessments, because he knows which ones were. If you say it was, you've become another judge in a week that already has several.

And the ownership is the point. A goalie who learns to assess his own goals accurately is building the exact capability the position exists to teach. Handing him a verdict — in either direction — takes the work away from him.

The useful version of this from a parent is almost always a question, asked the next day.

What "his" actually means

Worth knowing, because the categories are more specific than most parents assume.

Position. Was he on his arc, at the right depth, square to the shooter? Most goals that are genuinely a goalie's fault are position errors that happened a full second before the shot.

The step. Did he move toward the line of the ball, or did he reach? Reaching is how a save becomes a goal by four inches.

Hands. High hands, top hand leading. A goalie beaten high on his stick side has usually dropped a hand.

And the read. At the older ages, whether he bit on a fake or committed early.

What's not his: an unmarked shooter at eight yards. A deflection. A shot that was simply better than he was. A breakaway that started with a turnover at the other end. Those are the majority, and they're the reason save percentage is such a poor measure of a goalie.

Suggestions on what you can do

Wait a day. The review conversation goes better on Sunday than in the car on Saturday, and it's the difference between analysis and a trial.

Open with a question, not a conclusion. Which ones do you think were yours? is the whole technique. Most goalies over about ten will give you a more accurate answer than you'd have given them.

Ask what he'd do differently, once. Then stop. One question, one answer, move on.

Don't rescue him from an honest answer. If he says the fourth one was his, resist "well, the defense didn't help." He's doing the thing correctly. Let it stand.

And don't let him take all of them. The other failure mode is a goalie who owns everything, which looks like accountability and is usually something else. If he's claiming nine out of nine, that's worth a gentle push back — and if it's a pattern, it's a bigger conversation.

By age: third and fourth grade, don't do this at all — no goal at this age should be analysed, and the only correct response is "that happens." Fifth and sixth, one question the next day, and let him answer it. Seventh and eighth, he can review a whole game honestly, and this is when the habit sticks. Ninth and tenth, he's likely watching film, so the assessment is his and your role is to ask what he found. Eleventh and twelfth, he should be able to explain a goal to you in tactical terms, and the useful thing you can offer is interest.

A few things worth avoiding

Try not to blame the defense out loud. It's the most tempting sentence available to a goalie parent and it quietly teaches him that results belong to other people.

Go easy on "you had that one." Even when it's true, it's the coach's sentence, not yours.

Try not to count them. A parent who can recall all nine goals in order has been doing something during that game that a kid can feel from sixty yards.

And don't let the conversation happen twice. Once, the next day, then it's finished. The whole value of the review is that it has an end.

The version worth remembering

Your young athlete is going to concede several thousand goals over ten years.

The ones that matter are the handful each season he can actually learn from, and finding those is his job — a skill he'll use long after the sport, every time something goes wrong and he has to work out which part of it was his.

Your job is to ask one good question the next day, and then to be interested in the answer.

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Structured game review is built into the program from seventh grade, so the assessment becomes his habit rather than a conversation in the car. Three real days of a fifth-grade week are open on the site, no signup. Take a look at the free week.

Coach Greg — LAX Goalie Hub