Alisson and Thibaut Courtois mistakes analysed by a goalkeeper who knows the feeling

It was the 14th minute of their Champions League last-16 match and Liverpool were leading 1-0 against Real Madrid. Following a loose ball in the midfield, Madrid’s right-back Dani Carvajal quickly sent a pass back to goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois as Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo frantically chased him down. However, this was no ordinary backpass that he played to his keeper, but rather a high and wildly bouncing ball that was virtually impossible to clear first time.

As Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah closed in, Courtois attempted to control the ball with his chest and play it away from danger but was unable to get the ball under control. The backwards spin caused the ball to slide down his chest and bounce off his leg directly into the path of Salah, who easily poked the ball past him to give Liverpool a 2-0 lead.

Madrid would get themselves back into the game over the course of the next 20 minutes despite Courtois’ error, with two goals from Vinicius Junior, the second of which came from a similar calamity at the back. This time it was Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson’s turn.

It all started with a harmless through ball by Madrid from inside their own half. After the pass was unable to find Vinicius Jr running in behind, Liverpool’s Joe Gomez was first to the ball and sent a pass backwards to relieve the pressure. Rather than clear long upfield, Alisson instead tried to play out and clip the ball over the onrushing Vinicius Jr. The ball never made it over his Brazil team-mate, but instead rebounded off his body, looped up and over Alisson into the back of the net to even the score at 2-2 before half-time.

It was a stark contrast from last year’s meeting in the Champions League final when two of the world’s best goalkeepers were in great form — Courtois was even awarded man of the match in Paris after to his heroics.

Both situations were the type of passes that goalkeepers receive countless times during a season, and one both Courtois and Alisson would have been expected to handle with relative ease, but this time both of them got it wrong and were left embarrassed.

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Every goalkeeper in the world has to deal with making mistakes and the fallout that may follow. What makes great goalkeepers great is their ability to digest what happened, learn from mistakes and put in a stronger performance immediately. This is hard enough to do after a mistake in a random league game with not much at stake, but much more difficult with the pressure of Champions League advancement on the line.

The moment a mistake like this happens, there is an instant sense of shock as you wonder to yourself, “How the hell did that just happen?”

You feel like you want to throw up. If Alisson or Courtois are anything like me, they would have wanted to crawl into bed, pull the sheets over their head and wish it never happened. Every keeper has been there. It’s one of the worst feelings anyone can experience on a football pitch: that of letting your entire team down.

The seconds that follow after committing an error are your lowest moments as a goalkeeper — you feel completely helpless and lonely. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.

One moment that still stings for me to this day was the Swedish Cup quarter-final against Gothenburg in 2015 when I played for Helsingborgs. It was only 20 seconds into the game and we were confidently controlling possession right after kick-off when our central defender received a sloppy pass from one of our midfielders, putting him under pressure from Gothenburg’s attacker. I moved across to the right side of my goal and showed myself as an outlet and demanded the ball at my feet.

However, rather than receive a friendly back pass, my central defender misfired and blindly rifled the ball back across the goal and to my weaker left foot.

Looking back, I could have probably let the ball fly past me and out for a corner kick and lived to fight another day, but here, I panicked. As the ball swerved away from me, I jumped and lunged with my left foot in an attempt to control it, only to have the ball fly off my foot and perfectly into the stride of Gothenburg’s forward, who was closing me down. After controlling the ball he slotted it across the face of my goal to one of his team-mates for an easy tap-in. It took less than 30 seconds and we were already 1-0 down in a massive game.

I remember as the ball hit the back of the net my head turned and I attempted to come to terms with what had just happened, sunk to my knees and curled up into a ball.

I’ll never forget the feeling as I was lying on the grass totally distraught and in complete shock. One or two of my team-mates came to my side to comfort me, but there was nothing they could do or say to take away the pain.

Despite our best efforts to rebound and get ourselves back into the game, the early goal was a mental hurdle none of us could get over, and we went on to lose 2-0. Gothenburg would end up winning the Swedish Cup that year and earned an automatic spot in the Europa League.

After the final whistle, I headed straight for the locker room.

“Please wake up. This can’t possibly be happening,” I remember thinking.

My team-mates walked in one after another, almost everyone avoiding eye contact with me. I felt like an outcast in my own locker room. It still seems surreal. To this day I still think about what could have been had things gone differently.

Once the Liverpool vs Real Madrid game was over, both goalkeepers’ jobs is to forget everything that just happened. The worst thing you can do is dwell on it, let it affect your confidence and seep into the other areas of your game. Instead, you need to continue to play the way you usually would, with the same confidence as if the mistake never happened. It’s one of the hardest things for any goalkeeper to do.

It’s often said that goalkeepers “need to have a short memory”. While it’s a phrase I’ve espoused myself in the past, the older I get, and the more I reflect on my own career, I think it’s much more accurate to say that a goalkeeper needs to have acceptance. An acceptance you will concede goals and that sometimes it will be because of your own mistakes.

As soon as a mistake happens, you can’t change it — no matter how much you would like to rewind the clock and start over. Once you can let go of the error(s) and accept it happened, you will be in a much better place to help your team. Instead of dwelling on what went wrong in the game, the best thing Alisson and Courtois can do is say, “That sucked. I know I’m better than that.” Then move on.

Usually, after matches, we hear players and coaches talk endlessly about watching replays. Analysing clips can be a wonderful tool because it allows us to see the full picture of what happened (good, bad and indifferent). This is how we reflect, digest and get better. However, it can also have the opposite effect. If you watch mistakes over and over, they can become ingrained in your memory and hard to shake.

The next day at training, their focus has to shift. Everything that happened the day before is irrelevant. It’s important they keep their talk positive and use phrases like “I can”, “I am” and “I will”. This naturally pushes their thought process in a positive direction. An example may be, “I am one of the best goalkeepers in the world and I catch everything” or “I’m a beast in the air and will dominate my box”. In Alisson and Courtois’ case, it might be “I’m comfortable and secure with the ball at my feet”.

Sometimes you may see the camera pan to the goalkeeper and they will be talking to themselves during a match. It is in these exact moments that a keeper will be muttering these positive words to help pick themselves up and also stay focused on the task at hand. A goalkeeper’s self-talk/coaching is incredibly important.

As vital as your positive talk or the hard work you put in on the training pitch is, the best way to get over the type of performance they just had will be to put in a top performance in a game of a similar magnitude the next chance you get, so they’ll both have eyes firmly on the return leg in Madrid on March 15. It does wonders for your confidence and your play as a whole to get over that mental hurdle and firmly allows you to put your past scars and shortcomings behind you once and for all.

As a fellow goalkeeper and someone who knows what it’s like to be in their shoes, I’ll be rooting for Alisson and Courtois to learn from one of the more challenging games of their career and get things right the next chance they get.

(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)