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Click here to see the video: Soccer Goalie: Catching High Balls

Kevin Mackenzie: One of the most important skills that a goalie can develop is the ability to field a high ball in traffic. This will come during a cross or a corner kick where attacking players are trying to head or volley the ball into the net. Lily is going to start off with a good athletic stance, I'm going to throw her the ball and what I want to see is Lily do is jump off of one leg, bring the other knee up. This knee is going to help elevate Lily; it's also going to protect her from on-coming attackers. She also needs to field the ball at a highest point as possible so that she is fielding it over the heads of anybody that is trying to knock the ball into the goal.

It is important that she uses the W catch, this is going to give her the best opportunity to hold onto the ball. When she catches it, she'll bring the ball down and protect it against her chest by cradling it in and by keeping her elbows and her pinkies together.

She is also going to yell “Keeper!” and the purpose of that is to let defenders know that she is going for the ball … when you are in traffic like that and you don't want your own defender running into the goalie and knocking the ball out of her hands. By calling “keeper,” that will help communicate with the defenders and prevent them from making that error. "Keeper," "keeper".

Notice that Lily catches the ball and secures it before she pulls it in. Often goalies will try to pull the ball in too quickly and they will mishandle it. So it's important to make the catch first, then you protect the ball. So on a high ball, knee up, hands up high, catch it at its highest point in W, then bring the ball in and protect it against the chest.