Recently I see a lot of hate on the second choice Goalkeeper of Barcelona, Marc-André Ter Stegen. Most of the criticism is very questionable and simply makes – no sense at all.

But what happened? For those, who don’t know it already, Florenzi scored a wonder goal against Barcelona in the Champions League Group Stages. He saw that Ter Stegen was off the line, and he decided to try his luck from 53 metres.

Many of those, who criticise Ter Stegen said, he shouldn’t should be off the line, but this is how Barcelona and almost every club in modern football plays. Every elite club has a Keeper-Sweeper as a Goalkeeper. And many Top 4 or 5 clubs are playing with a Sweeper-Keeper or atleast with some sorts of sweeping.

But why?

Coaches more and more want to keep possession, playing it out of the back-four savely and build up the play from the defence. A Sweeper-Keeper helps the back-four and the team in general a lot more. When you play with a high-line like Barcelona, Rayo Vallecano or Bayern for example does, you have to play with a fifth defender and that defender is also a Goalkeeper: The Sweeper-Keeper. With a high defensive line you make the pitch smaller for the opponent and it helps regaining possesion and force the opponent to make mistakes/losing possession. If they, and that is really hard to do, can calmly build up an attack while being under huge pressure the Sweeper-Keeper in his role is extremely important, as it’s their duty to break up the (counter)-attack by intercepting the ball. Ter Stegen is the definition of a Sweeper-Keeper, Bravo is not, but he still has to play this role. He is also off the line, like Ter Stegen and he also tries to build-up the play from the defence, even tho it’s not as contributing as when it Ter-Stegen does.

The Barcelona coach said the following about Florenzi’s goal: “Roma’s goal is my fault, we tell our keepers to play like that. I guess they won’t score another one like this against us.”

Let’s for example analyze an opportunity from Málaga, while Claudio Bravo herded the goal:

Juankar shot only goes inches over the bar. Bravo’s reaction says it all, he was relieved that this shot did not went in.

Players often look up if the goalkeeper is off his line and are trying their luck from long-range. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t. Iñigo Martínez could celebrate these kind of goals twice in his career:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arEDWgSDLvM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15IT1jC3rWg

You, as a goalkeeper simply can’t do anything against it. And also have in mind, that the coach demands this from his goalkeeper.

Ter Stegen recently conceded two longe-range strikes, and one of them was a wonder goal. For the other one you can criticise him for it, because he tried to clear the ball via a heading interception, but it landed in San José’s foot who didn’t took long to try his luck – and he scored. The best goalkeeper in the world, and the third place in the Ballon d’Or, Manuel Neuer conceded in his Schalke 04 days the exact same goal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz1tdIvntmw

Trying to intercepting the ball with your head is always a hard matter, simply because you can’t clear it good to the left or to the right, which means it often goes just centrally straight and you have to take the risk that It could end up by an opponent’s player who only waits to blast it into the net. A clearance with the foot is too risky as you could easily receive the red card.

Just to name another goalkeeper, not because he played and captained Real Madrid for over a decade, but because he is the definiton of a reactive GK: Iker Casillas. He simply does not come off his line and that caused a lot of dodgy goals. His decision making isn’t modern either, best example is probably the goal he conceded in the Champions league final: Goes out, doesn’t know if it was a good idea, wants to go on the line again – and concedes.

I did not write the article to aimlessy praise Ter Stegen. I only want to show some of the people that you can’t nail on the goal on Ter Stegen, because thats what the coach requires from him.

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