Keepers of the faith have vanished

There are significant fears that Australia’s goalkeeping stocks are running dry with Mat Ryan our only elite keeper under 30.

Beyond Socceroos goalkeeper Mat Ryan there are few young elite players

For years they came along in clusters, great Australian goalkeepers from Jimmy Fraser in the early 1970s through to Mark Bosnich, Zeljko Kalac and Mark Schwarzer from the turn of the century.

But now there are fears the well is running dry. Among the names on the extended list of more than 50 potential candidates for the Socceroos’ World Cup qualifying campaign is Liam Reddy at 39, simply because there are no brilliant young keepers demanding to be there in his place.

Mat Ryan will take his place in goal for Australia against Jordan early on Friday morning (AEDT), but the question of what happens should he succumb to long-term injury is little closer to being answered.

Experts canvassed by The Australian point to a perfect storm of factors: not enough goalkeeping coaches for kids; irregular coaching, and a complete bottleneck of opportunities once players enter their 20s.

“I’ve seen a Mathew Ryan or a Danny Vukovic make their top-level debut at 18, and every once in a while you want to see a player do that,” said John Crawley, Socceroos goalkeeping coach and a ­pivotal figure in the development of a number of Aussie keepers, Ryan and Vukovic included.

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“But I haven’t for a while. I’m not saying some of the young boys in the A-League and NPL aren’t good, but you really want to see a kid around 18 or 19 that really stands out.

“Sometimes you get a crop come along (like Bosnich, Schwarzer and Kalac), but they were coached well by the likes of Jimmy Fraser. We can still produce those goalkeepers, they are out there. It’s just a matter of identifying them, putting them on a pathway.”

Crawley’s issue is with a lack of goalkeeping coaches in a big country with limited resources. Some senior NPL clubs, only one rung below the A-League, don’t have a qualified keeping coach.

For Socceroos boss Graham Arnold, part of the problem is the hugely limited number of opportunities for young goalkeepers to play, and so become better.

“With an 11-team A-League, where five keepers are foreign and several of the others are older, there has to be a discussion around whether it’s right to have foreign keepers in the A-League,” Arnold said. “Otherwise there may soon be no goalkeepers. You have Mat Ryan who’s 27, and in the A-League under that age is only Paul Izzo.

“If you look at the national team set-up for goalkeepers Brad Jones is 39, Vukovic is 34, Mitch Langerak is 32, Adam Federici is 34. Even Andrew Redmayne is 31.

“The main thing for us is somewhere for the 23-year-olds to play. They’re not getting games in the A-League, and they’re too old for the youth league.

“In the NSL, there was first grade, reserve grade, and a lot more clubs. At 19, Zeljko Kalac could play for Sydney United’s reserve grade, because he was behind Tony Franken.”

That opportunity to play at a senior level, make mistakes and learn is vital, as Ryan has told The Australian.

“Learning my trade (at the Mariners) with Arnie and all the experienced guys I had there, that enabled me to mature a lot faster than many goalkeepers my age,” he said.

“Playing with men when I was basically still a teenager, not just in the squad but as the No 1 goalkeeper, put responsibility on to me. That forced me to grow up.”

The lack of young Australian goalkeeping talent should be high on the to-do list of new national technical director Rob Sherman, say national team coaching staff.

There were no quick fixes to increase the flow, according to Crawley, who would like to see a template developed for use across the country — and possibly increased clusters of the best young talent brought together.

“In my opinion there’s three stages of development, and the very first one from 10-13 is crucial,” he said. “It’s basic, boring stuff but it’s essential.

“But if you’re not competent in those things and you progress to the next stage, you can see it. From 14-17 you learn everything technical about goalkeeping, and 18-21 you have to practise that.

“That’s the template I think would work; it certainly worked for boys like Mat Ryan, Danny ­Vukovic, Andrew Redmayne.”

The Daily Telegraph