/Case study: hip roll
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The ability to change direction quickly as a goalkeeper is paramount to success. Whether it’s reacting to a rebound, adjusting for a deflected effort on goal or simply needing to re-position as a result of a switch of play, quick thought processes and even quicker feet can make the difference between stopping a goal and having to pick the ball out of the back of your net.
One popular technique for a quick change of direction, specifically as a result of having made a low save in one direction and needing to quickly get back the other way, is the hip roll technique, utilised by a lot of top goalkeepers around the world.
This technique focuses on using your hips and lower back bones, coupled with your initial momentum to allow you to roll round 180 degrees and get yourself back off in the other direction as quickly as possible.
During my private 1-2-1 sessions this week, we looked into this technique, when to use it and how to do so effectively.
Below is a quick video demonstrating some uses of this technique by professional goalkeepers, including the Brazilian national team, PSG stopper Keylor Navas and Danish international Kasper Schmeichel, during his country’s EURO 2020 defeat to England.
Use cases
The use cases for this technique are fairly clear, but it’s still worth exploring in what situations it would be most beneficial and when it might be better to use a different method to get back to your feet.
The real key with the hip roll is that it’s all about momentum. By swinging your legs round on the area of least resistance, you are able to ensure maximum momentum, which not only helps you get back to your feet quicker, but also gain more spring in the opposite direction to your original dive.
If you were to try this type of move when laying on your back, for example, you would likely find it considerably slower and less affective as you’re trying to roll round on larger and flatter surface area, which would generate more resistance and require more core strength to get up.
This technique also really works best when there is a high probability that the effort requiring the second movement (whether that is a rebounded shot, a deflection or some other reason) is going well to the other side of your initial dive. If you consider the Schmeichel save from the video above, for example, as he’d made the first save right by his left hand post, the entirety of the goal to his right was left exposed and the striker (Kane, in this instance) was highly likely to try and exploit that space with his follow up effort – it wouldn’t have made much sense for him to shoot where Schmeichel was already positioned!
Phases
Something I like to work on during my sessions are “uncomfortable movements”. These are movements or saves that feel unnatural or are difficult to do, but may well make all the difference during a crucial moment in a game. The hip roll is a good example of this. When working on it with one goalkeeper, we broke it down into smaller chunks in order to focus on perfecting each element of the movement.
- Low dive to one side
- Use outstretched arm swing to generate momentum to swing round on hips, ensuring feet are in the air
- Use opposite hand to assist lift and outside leg* to shift momentum across
- Push up, across and, if possible, forwards to meet the second ball
*Using your inside leg will still help you spring up, but the movement will be more vertical than horizontal. This may well be more appropriate in some situations so shouldn’t be completely ignored
When practicing this skill, we found that breaking up each phase and perfecting it as a standalone movement proved beneficial when stitching it all together as one smooth motion.
Additional findings
We also discovered that instigating this movement works much better when you begin it at full stretch, such as from a long reaching dive low to one side. Making a save in your midriff and attempting to hip roll round the other way didn’t offer enough momentum to effectively pull it off and made the movement much less effective.
Summary
There are, of course, many ways to skin a cat. As far as I’m concerned, there is no “correct” way to make a save and every individual goalkeeper will have their own style and technique that will work best for them.
Clearly the hip roll technique works really well in certain situations and can give the goalkeeper and advantage when needing to quickly change direction fully from a laying position, but is not a “one size fits all” solution for making that second save. Part of a goalkeeper’s ability comes from being able to make those split second decisions in the heat of the moment about which techniques to use in any given scenario, and perfecting that process will no doubt give you a better chance of deploying your tools at the best possible time.