Mats Olsson: “The most important thing to save the ball is the brain, not the body.” 

The current Norway women’s national team goalkeeping coach, who works with top-level goalkeepers such as Katrine Lunde, Mats Olsson, sat down with us to offer insight into his lectures. He elaborated on the importance of mental training, making the point that your body has limits, that less experienced goalkeepers should have confidence as a key emphasis in their training and that enjoyment plus the longing to always develop is crucial for the long-term career of goalkeepers.

Not just a coach, as a player Mats was a European Champion (1994), Olympic silver medallist (1992 and 1996) and a World Championship silver (1992 & 1996) and gold (1990) medallist with Sweden. Mats’ playing career résumé alone is enough to show that his wisdom is invaluable. 

Reflex or mental training? 

When addressing the topic of reflex or mental training, Mats points out that “motricity and the movement of the body are important. To be in the right place at the right time, but you have a limit in how fast you can move your body. But the most important thing to save the ball is the brain, not the body. The difference in how you feel, in the flow and inside the game, that’s what is important- so the mental part at the top level is more important than anything else.” 

“If you take away everything, in a shot simulation – so it is just a ball coming out of a machine, you have no idea where the ball is coming; you won’t save anything- you only save what is hitting you. You don’t have time; you need signals from the body that is shooting the ball – to react and read where the shot is coming from. This is the mental part.” 

Coaching goalkeepers of all levels 

Mats argues that coaching beginners and experienced goalkeepers “it’s two totally different ways.” 

“When I’m working with the most experienced, I’m working between challenge and confidence. I have to challenge them, and I have to build confidence with them. But with the younger ones, it’s more important to build confidence, I can’t challenge them in the same way that I can with the experienced ones.” 

Mats points out one key instinct that distinguishes the most talented. “You can train the physical way, the technical, the tactical, positioning, but the most complicated to train for the goalkeeper is the visage, to see where the ball is coming, to understand and read the body language of the shooter. That’s where you can see if it’s a talent. If they have this vision by themselves or if you have to train it. Like an instinct- some people have it. I can compare a good goalkeeper with a good playmaker – a good playmaker can see solutions- and as a good goalkeeper I can see what you're looking to do as a shooter – I can read your body language and read the defence.  If I see this in young goalkeepers, I can see this is a talent.” 

Top-level goalkeepers- what sustains their career?  

Mats explains how the modern goalkeeper is able to keep playing at the top level for longer than those of his and previous generations.

“I was retired late for my generation. I retired at 37 – and in my time, that was very late. Today the profession is making it possible for goalkeepers to prolong their careers – normally you don’t have to get up early in the morning to go to work, you have more time to recover – you have better health organisation in the teams- and the experience for the goalkeepers is so important.” 

“What you’re losing in speed in the body as you’re getting older- you’re recovering with experience. You know where the ball is going and what side it is on, you’ve lived in that situation so many times. This means that clubs are still interested in older goalkeepers because they know that the most important thing is not to be explosive or active- but that the brain is working.  

Putting this with better physical preparation, the health systems, the better recovering times, means that these players get longer careers.” 

What is the difference between a goalkeeper that retires early and one that prolongs their career? “That you’re enjoying it. The day you stop feeling like you enjoy the training- you’re not feeling challenged, you’re not feeling like: 'today, what’s going to happen?', you don’t have this feeling in the body like you’re still in your twenties. You need to feel this something special. When you go to training or a game and start to feel “another day, another job”, it’s time to finish. 

“The person that doesn’t want to get better stops being good.” If you don’t want to develop, you stop being good. That’s simple. When you think you’re already good, you go quickly downwards.” 

The inaugural goalkeeper summit 

The first goalkeeper summit brought minds together to innovate and analyse goalkeeping, providing invaluable lessons for the attendants. 

Olsson stated, “We all want to progress goalkeeping. We care about it. But we have different opinions, and that’s good, in goalkeeping, there’s not one way. With different types and sizes of goalkeepers, today we’ve mentioned: Andreas Palicka, Andreas Wolff, (Gonzalo) Pérez de Vargas and Niklas Landin, four different styles and kinds of goalkeepers, with different strengths. We can’t train them in the same way, they must be trained in different ways.” 

“The best thing about the summit is that we come together and that we can learn from each other.” 

Whether it is the importance of mental preparation for a goalkeeper, or the need to always look to develop to stay at the top, the world of goalkeeping is full of know-how that only the most experienced, such as Mats Olsson, can offer. Whatever comes next in the development of handball goalkeeping, be sure that Mats Olsson will be analysing it and hopefully sharing this wisdom with us again in the future.  

Photos © Agentur DIENER