ShutoutCentral » Goalkeeper and other Soccer News

Who’s the Best Goalkeeper in Women’s College Soccer?

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:58:14 +0000

The NCAA Final 4 is just about under way – who do you think is the top NCAA women’s college goalkeeper? There have been many occasions this NCAA tournament where goalkeepers stole the show. From Aline Reis’s save during the shootout to advance UCF to its first quarterfinal appearance to Aubrey Bledsoe’s 5 save performance to preserve the shutout to lead Wake Forest to the Final Four. ShutoutCentral will reveal the number one keeper after the tournament. The nominees are:

Justine Bernier, Sr. Alabama

Bernier’s career will be a tough act to follow. She had 453 saves with a save percentage of .822. Of her 29 wins, 21 were shutouts – that’s very impressive.

Aubrey Bledsoe, So. Wake Forest

Bledsoe made a name for herself last year when she stopped 3 pks in a ACC match against the favorite’s Maryland. This year, she was the only goalkeeper named to the All ACC first-team and broke the record for single season shutouts with 14. Her impressive 0.62 GAA is the third best in the conference. She’ll be fun to watch in the Final Four.

Colleen Boyd, Jr. Oregon State

Boyd’s 0.68 GAA (3rd in the Pac-12) was a leading factor to her team’s 3rd place finish in their conference. This season she was an All-Conference honorable mention and All-Academic honorable mention. Throughout her career, Boyd has helped her team to three straight NCAA tournament berths.

Tara Campbell, Jr. Duke

Adrianna Franch, Sr. Oklahoma State

Bianca Henninger, Sr. Santa Clara

Despite battling injuries all season, when Henninger was in goal, she made it count. Of her 18 starts, she only allowed 13 goals (that’s a 0.72 GAA) and she had 4 shutouts with 60 saves. She was also named a preseason All-WCC selection. She’ll make an excellent goalkeeper in the WPS.

Chantel Jones, Sr. UVA

Jones is the NCAA record holder for career shutouts with 47, 14 of those came this season. She’s UVA’s career GAA leader and leads in minutes played. She’s also Virginia’s first All-American goalkeeper (she was named to the 2010 4th team).

Natalie Kulla, Sr. Marquette

Kulla has a list of accomplishments including back to back Big East Goalkeeper of the Year awards and being named one of the finalists for the Lowes Senior Class Award. This season she has 18 wins and ranks second on Marquette’s single-season list. She also has a 0.79 GAA.

Emily Oliver, So. Stanford

Oliver leads the nation in GAA with 0.26 and is third in the country with a save percentage of .919. This year she has racked up 14 shutouts and only allowed 5 goals in 1,761 minutes of play. She was also named to the All-Pac 12 first team. It will be exciting to watch her with more pressure during the Final Four.

Aline Reis, Sr. UCF

Congrats to Josh Saunders and Aviata Sports!

admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:18:58 +0000

Josh Saunders earned the shutout to make the Galaxy once again MLS Champions. He had a great season and quickly adjusted to being the number 1 keeper for the Galaxy. Saunders has been wearing the new goalkeeper glove brand Aviata and giving them great press! Congrats guys!

Road to the 2011 MLS Cup: Goalkeeper Recap

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:39:22 +0000

We always see great goalkeeper action during the MLS Cup playoffs. Here are some of the notable performances for the set of games between the Seattle Sounders and Real Salt Lake, New York Red Bulls and LA Galaxy, Philadelphia Union and Houston Dynamo, and Colorado Rapids and Sporting Kansas City.

Kasey Keller – Seattle Sounders
Accomplished goalkeeper and soon to be retired US soccer star, Kasey Keller had a stellar performance against Real Salt Lake. He was the best man on the field for the Sounders, but his efforts weren’t enough – the Sounders lost 3-0. Check out some of his highlights to see great back to back saves.

Josh Saunders – LA Galaxy
His 3 jaw dropping saves in the second half and play throughout the game made the one goal lead enough to win in NY. LA will have an interesting decision in the off-season to keep it’s two big time goalkeepers or trade one of them since they’re both good enough to be MLS starting keepers.

Tally Hall – Houston Dynamo
Did you see that upper 90 save on Torres’s free kick?! Tally Hall also had a couple of other game changing saves and helped his team win 2-1 against the Philadelphia Union.

FIFA Happy About Improvement in Women’s Goalkeeping

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:53:56 +0000

FIFA posted an article today about the play of the Women’s 2011 World Cup. It was mostly about how the gap between the super powers (United States, Germany, Brazil, etc.) and the developing countries has narrowed, but they did touch on the progress of goalkeeping. The quality of the goalkeepers’ performance in previous Women’s World Cups and the women’s game in general has been criticized in the past – decision making, shot stopping, coming out for crosses, and ability to play with their feet. But, the goalkeeping game has seen significant changes, especially during this most recent World Cup.

Goalkeepers appeared to be more athletic than ever and were all pretty technically sound – handling, boxing the ball out, diving, etc. It also seemed that the women goalkeepers were playing the ball with their feet more than they had in the past. The US Women’s National Team goalkeeper, Hope Solo masters this skill – she actually played in the field throughout high school. It’s not just her ability to hit the long ball that’s a threat to opponents, it’s the pressure she takes off her defenders when they can use her as an outlet rather than clearing the ball away and also her ability to set up the counter-attack. Hope Solo is more than just a field player with a goalkeeper jersey and gloves – she made quite a few game changing saves that shifted the momentum of the game during the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Her all around solid goalkeeping performance earned her the Golden Glove award for the best goalkeeper in the tournament.

Speaking of shot stopping, FIFA still believes it is an area of improvement for female goalkeepers as well as breakaways and crosses. I believe shot stopping will improve at a quicker rate than breakaways and crosses because women goalkeepers tend to be much more timid and less aggressive than male goalkeepers. Women goalkeepers are more inclined to feel volunerable when they come our off their line whether it’s a ball in the air or a one on one situation. In addition to the psychological aspect, it’s been proven that men haven better depth perception and vertical jump capabilities than women, making it tough for the female and male goalkeepers game to be the same. Shot stopping is just as much about athleticism as it is about positioning. We’ll continue to see this improve as female goalkeepers gain more experience and have better coaching at the youth level. FIFA addresses this opportunity - “it is paramount that associations invest in good goalkeeping coaches for their female goalkeepers, starting with the youth teams.”

You can read the full article from FIFA.com here.

Be Like Matt Pickens with the adidas Fingersaves, Predator Soft Ground Cleats, and Shutouts

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:19:33 +0000

Goalkeeper Matt Pickens and the Colorado Rapids are one step closer to back to back MLS Cup championships after their 1-0 win against the Columbus Crew last night. Pickens was not too busy last night, but kept his back line organized and made a couple of saves to earn the clean sheet.

This might be a superstition or maybe Pickens really does prefer the adidas FS Wet Weather goalkeeper gloves from last year over the 2011 line of adidas gloves. He’s been wearing these gloves for the past two seasons.

Goalkeeper Matt Pickens wearing the adidas FS Wet Weather goalkeeper gloves during the 2010 MLS Cup Championship

Pickens wears the adidas FS Wet Weather goalkeeper gloves during the 2011 playoff match against Columbus.

Pickens was also wearing the adidas Predator X TRX soft ground cleats last night.

Don’t Call It A Comeback!

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:16:23 +0000

Hello friends and fellow goalkeepers!

After a short hiatus, ShutoutCentral is back! We’ll be updating the site more frequently with more goalkeeper gear reviews (gloves, jerseys, cleats, and other equipment), keeper drills and coaching tips, and news on the top net-minders in the world. We’ll also be incorporating video reviews and drills in the coming weeks.

If you have any post ideas or questions you’d like addressed on ShutoutCentral, please comment below.

It's been so long, Hope Solo is switching "sports" and joined Dancing With The Stars!

Goalkeeper Earns WPS Weekly Honors

admin — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:23:06 +0000

Hey Keepers,

Join me in congratulating fellow goalkeeper Alli Lipsher for earning the WPS Player of the Week honor. It’s not often that a goalkeeper is recognized as the top player of the week in any league, so we were very excited to see Lipsher take home this honor. Lipsher was the anchor of the Beat’s defense saving 11 shots in her shutout performance against Sky Blue F.C.

Alli Lipsher looks to be wearing the PUMA PWR-C 1.10 Protect goalkeeper gloves in the above picture. She also wore the Women’s PUMA King Finale i cleats in white. Check out our review of the PUMA PWR-C 2.10 and PWR-C Super goalkeeper gloves and see why so many professional keepers are wearing the PWR-C line of goalkeeper gloves. And, compare prices of the PUMA PWR-C line of goalkeeper gloves here!

MLS Save of the Week: W. 5

admin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:12:43 +0000

Hey Keepers!

Have you seen the 5th installment of the MLS Save of the Week? You’ll feel like you’re taking the SATs trying to choose the best answer.

Vote for Jon Busch’s save on Henry’s rocket of a shot, Dan Kennedy’s point blank save in the 90th minute of the game against Vancouver, Stefan Frie’s jaw dropping breakaway save against Charlie Davies, Matt Pickens reflex save off a free kick against Real Salt Lake, or Jake Gleeson’s upper 90 save against FC Dallas.

Jon Busch wears Primo Sport goalkeeper gloves and adidas soccer cleats

Dan Kennedy wears uhlsport goalkeeper gloves

Stefan Frei wears adidas goalkeeper gloves and adidas soccer cleats

Matt Pickens wears adidas goalkeeper gloves and adidas soccer cleats

Jake Gleeson wears uhlsport goalkeeper gloves and uhlsport soccer cleats

Arsenal’s Goalkeeper Szczesny Out with Finger Injury

admin — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:50:33 +0000

Arsenal again finds themselves in goalkeeper trouble with an injury to Wojciech Szczesny. The keeper is said to have a dislocated finger from the recent match against Barcelona and they’re not sure how severe the injury is or when the keeper will be back in the net. It’s possible that Szczesny will miss the remainder of Arsenal’s season.

Manuel Almunia will take the Polish’s goalkeeper’s starting spot as Arsenal’s Lukasz Fabianski and Vito Mannone are also out with injuries. He had a rough game after filling in for Szczesny, conceding all 3 goals including the one pictured to the right. Arsenal ended up losing the aggregate 4-3, not to mention a good deal of confidence for the reminder of the Premier League. Let this be a reminder to all those that say only youth goalkeepers need gloves with finger protection! How about some from Lanzera starting at just $39.99!

Hope Solo Interviewed on her Major Shoulder Surgery

admin — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:17:12 +0000

The US Women’s National Team recently released a rare look into Hope Solo and her near career ending shoulder injury and surgery with their Born to Dive video. Hope gives great insight on how a serious injury can be just as mentally challenging as it is physical.

Hope Solo’s Born to Dive Video

One thing Hope didn’t mention was that once she’s cleared she has to fight for her spot against some of the best goalkeepers in the WPS – Nicole Barnhart, Ashyln Harris, and Alyssa Naeher. Hope, we wish you the best of luck with your recovery and we’re looking forward to seeing you back on the field!

Are you a big fan of Hope Solo? She wears Nike goalkeeper gloves and cleats including the Nike Goalkeeper Premier SGT gloves.