In the modern game, a goalkeeper who cannot effectively partake in a rondo is - at many levels - increasingly seen as an exception to the rule.

Mulan

The statement was a quote from an editor at Goalkeeper.com. The site is one of if not the most important sources of information when it comes to goalkeepers in football. They often have great interviews with goalkeepers' coaches who coached at the top level. The issue, this site, along with many others, seems to speak of this phenomenon as if it is some kind of a revolutionary invention as they speak of goalkeepers participating in Rondo as if it only started happening in the last few years.

Lack of Credit

As I spoke in the previous two parts of this series, futsal goalkeepers have been participating in Rondo and similar practices for tens of years ago. And as with many things football copies from other sports, we hear the same thing, "Check out how great this evolution is". This makes the case of goalkeepers' evolution in football something that is both overrated and misunderstood. It is a simple case of people noticing it late and once they noticed, they didn't credit the correct people.

It's really an annoying idea when you think of it, even outside of football. If you worked hard and came up with something only to be met with propaganda sharing your success that barely equals 50% of the effort you put in and the result it brought. Now realize that 50% is too much in Futsal's case as it is more like 5% or 10% if we're being generous.

In the same way, there's a lack of credit for futsal compared to football, there's a lack of credit for certain keepers compared to others. What keepers like Victor Valdes and Neuer were doing was seen by many, especially in England, as a revolution or a glitch in the system.

"The Exception"

When it the opening quote of this post become true? The answer is when Pep Guardiola joined the English Premier League. This is what I meant when I said in the previous two parts that Guardiola was getting more credit than he deserved only because he was more marketable than his predecessors, Cruyff, Michels, Yashin, and Grosics in order. Funny enough, Guardiola himself doesn't get proper credit because it only began when he joined Manchester City while it was something he has done before.

You must remember, especially during Pep's first season with Manchester City, how Guardiola was suffering in tabloids and articles about how the Premier League is "Different" and of course, "Welcome to the Premier League". As if he was not only learning something new about football but was learning everything about football all over again.

This problem existed in England as far as goalkeepers are concerned until very recently, also the entire world. Believe it or not, the 2018 World Cup was the first ever World where all national teams had a goalkeeper coach.

If we're going to talk about England in specific, then I must mention Marcos Abad. Abad is among the most important names of goalkeeper coaches in the world, and England in specific. The highest job Abad could have gotten in Spain was goalkeeper coach at Elche. When he went to England and got his job as a goalkeeper coach at Middlesbrough.

The reason he got the job there was because Middlesbrough's manager was Aitor Karanka, if you don't remember him, then he is Mourinho's assistant at Real Madrid and he even lead Middlesbrough to promotion in 2016. Also, Middlesbrough's sporting director at the time was Victor Orta, the man who worked with him previously in Elche.

The moment Abad reached Middlesbrough he was dumbfounded by how backward the goalkeeping coaching techniques were. Even though Middlesbrough had a top, expert modern goalkeeper like Victor Valdes as the main keeper. Abad stated that he felt he went back 15 years in time when seeing how Middlesbrough coached the goalkeepers, bare in mind we're talking in 2017 and about a coach who's top job prior was coaching keepers at Elche.

According to Abad, all that made up goalkeeping coaching was some shots, some crosses, and some dives. That's it. That was in England, and it is considered backwards when compared to many surrounding countries like Germany, Spain, Netherlands, France, Italy, and many more. So, what football did in terms of taking credit from futsal for the goalkeepers' evolution, England did to the rest of the world.

This is an issue England had the entire time, to be clear. They act stubbornly toward any new thing originating outside the country, they don't follow it, and once they catch up ten years later, they take credit for it and pretend that what they have done is a huge accomplishment. It's like someone coming into your house and suddenly acting like the host.

The Athletic's Stuart James recently wrote an article titled Feet (not hands), X-rays and seat-belts: How you scout – and train – a goalkeeper, one of his opening phrases was "Welcome to the world of goalkeeper rondos!". Like really? Thank you for the warm welcome, however, here's a three years old video shared by Bayern Munich's YouTube account with Neuer participating in rondo practice

There are countless such videos, including one showing Pinto, Barcelona's second keeper between 2008 and 2014, and a current rapper, yes I am not joking, participating in Barcelona's rondo training, that video is 11 years old. So, thanks for the welcome in your report which was written two months ago, Stuart, but it's actually us who should be welcoming you.

So, not going all the way to the main source has led to clubs chasing scraps of information. This is exactly one of the reasons which led smaller clubs in England to reach such high feet in such a short period. Clubs like Brentford, Brighton, Wolverhampton, and Bournemouth, just to name a few, but more on that in the next part of the series.