NS Rio Maior
Head of Academy & U13–U17 Goalkeeper Coach
2023 – 2024
A goalkeeping department with direction, criteria and a written methodology.
- Role
- Head of Academy & U13–U17 Goalkeeper Coach
- Period
- 2023 – 2024
- Age groups
- U13 to U17
- Context
- Academy
- Responsibilities
- Running the department, methodology, IDPs, liaison between sectors
Context.
I joined NS Rio Maior in 2023 with two roles at once: heading the academy and coaching the goalkeepers from U13 to U17. Running the department came on top of the work on the pitch, week after week. The job made two demands at once: give the department a methodology of its own, written down and shared by every age group, and make sure that methodology talked to the rest of the club. One without the other is not enough.
Goals.
- 01
A department with a method
Give the club a goalkeeping department with direction, criteria and a written methodology.
- 02
A plan for each goalkeeper
Roll out Individual Development Plans across every age group in the department.
- 03
Talking to the rest of the club
Be the link between the department, the coaching staffs and the club's other sectors.
The work.
Running the Goalkeeping Department
I took charge of the club's Goalkeeping Department. It is the role that frames everything else: the training methodology and the Individual Development Plans come out of it.
The club's methodology
I established the club's own goalkeeper training methodology. It was written down and applied from U13 to U17, so a goalkeeper moving up an age group finds the same language and the same demands.
Individual Development Plans
I implemented Individual Development Plans (IDPs) across the department, in every age group. Each goalkeeper had objectives of his own, written into his plan.
Multidisciplinary alignment
I was the primary liaison between the goalkeeping department, the coaching staffs and the club's other sectors. That alignment is what stops position-specific training pulling one way while team training pulls the other.
The department as the link.
The goalkeeping department is not an island: it is what connects the goalkeepers to the rest of the club.
- Goalkeeping department
- Coaching staffs
- The club's other sectors
- Goalkeepers
Impact.
Goalkeepers called up to the Santarém district squads.