Goalkeepers in the spotlight at the EHF Summit

The participants learnt a lot from the sessions with the four lecturers: Mats Olsson, goalkeeper coach for Norway women's national team and for EHF European League title holders SG Flensburg-Handewitt; Mattias Andersson, European champion, EHF Champions League winner and now goalkeeper coach of Germany's national teams and THW Kiel; Amandine Leynaud, world, European and Olympic champion with France and now goalkeeper coach of several French national teams; and former Great Britain national team goalkeeper Bobby White, who is now a goalkeeper coach with experience in both handball and football.

Plenty of five-star professionals also joined the event as participants, attending lectures, sharing knowledge and networking during the two days of the summit: Györ's goalkeeper coach Éva Kiss and Austrian goalkeeper Antonija Mamic, as well as former goalkeepers Danijel Saric and Ivan Stevanovic.

The EHF Goalkeeper Summit 2025 took place in the brand new Sport Arena Wien, which was opened just last month and hosted the first EHF event, providing the “classroom” and the playing court in the same venue. 

The programme included two days of theoretical sessions with goalkeeper positioning, techniques and tactics, followed by practical sessions and exercises with players from the Vienna-based Fivers club.

Experts shared their insights

“We talked and discussed as much as possible about goalkeeping. The main focus was on the basic level. We were talking a lot about positioning, movement in the goal and the four phases: movement, positioning, saving and the offensive transition. But, mainly, the focus was on positioning and reading and understanding the game,” summarised Swede Mattias Andersson the main topics of the summit.

For his country-fellow Mats Olsson, who had already been a lecturer at the first EHF Goalkeeper Summit in 2023, the second edition was another big event: “It was one of the first times now in two years that we're getting together all the goalkeeper coaches to share our knowledge, share our thoughts, what we're thinking about the future of goalkeeping and also learn from the people who are coming from different cultures, from different parts of Europe. This event is really big in the world of goalkeeping.”

For Olsson, who, for example, has been coaching legendary Katrine Lunde for many years, it is important to be a kind of trailblazer: “We tried to transmit our thoughts about the modern way of goalkeeping, going away from the traditional way. Because handball has developed a lot over the last 10-15 years. But in some places, we can see that maybe goalkeeping and goalkeeping training have not been developing in the same way.”

Mattias Andersson shares this opinion that much more focus should be put on the goalkeepers’ coaching: “It’s fun to see the interest for the goalkeeper position, as it's such an important one in handball. But only in the last few years has the specialisation of goalkeeper coaches started. We are individualists in a team sport, our movements are different, the mental game is different, reading the game is different, so there are a lot of different aspects to take part in and that's why I think every team should normally have a goalkeeper coach.”

Especially when looking out of the box, at football, Andersson sees a huge gap for handball: “We are really many steps behind in this regard. Last year, I was at Bayern Munich, and they have five goalkeeper coaches just for the academy. So the biggest challenge, of course, is money for the goalkeeper coaches, as well as getting the time in the training. Besides, we need the knowledge to produce good goalkeeper coaches who can transfer the things from theory to the practical part.”

Importance of developing goalkeeper coaches

But are world-class goalkeepers automatically top goalkeeper coaches? “Not at all,” says Amandine Leynaud. “Those are two different worlds. You cannot focus on who you are and how you played, as being a coach is something completely different, as every goalkeeper you train is different. I train with male and female youth national teams and the women’s senior team. For every goalkeeper you need an individual approach. It really motivates me to build a young goalkeeper from the start – because even I can learn many things from them. Definitely, as a coach, you need to improve yourself in communication and motivation, in learning how to help them, and what they need to learn. I am always curious about what to do, what happens in other sports and to find new ideas.”

This approach of life-long learning is also what Mattias Andersson taught the participants. “I was a former player, I can't do the same things with my goalkeepers that I did myself. So I have to learn, develop, look at other things, talk with other coaches. It is very important for the future to have coaches who are open-minded and will take the individuality of the goalkeeper into account.”

For Mats Olsson, it has been a special pleasure to be a lecturer at the EHF Goalkeeper Summit again. “For me, it is like handing over a legacy. I've been lucky to be playing at the top level and I'm lucky to be coaching at the top level. But if I can help other younger people who want to reach the same level? I'm very pleased to do that.” 

Serving as a coach for goalkeeper coaches is a need, says Olsson: “We are having more goalkeeper coaches today in the national teams and at top clubs. But we are not there yet. We have a lot of places where they are still not integrating the goalkeeper coach into the coaching staff. They take it like a situation, okay, you can go with the goalkeepers. In the end, the biggest challenge is a lot of times an economical one. Because it is hard to be a professional, 100 per cent a goalkeeper coach.”

A side aspect in the EHF Goalkeeper Summit 2025, but a main aspect for Mattias Andersson and Mats Olsson, is the mental strength of goalkeepers. “The biggest difference among world-class goalkeepers is the mental part. Everybody can learn techniques and tactics, but the best goalkeepers have a better eye for reading the situations. And they are also enjoying playing under pressure. The pressure is not bringing them down, but building them up. Therefore, you need to have a special mental preparation to be there,” says Olsson, while Andersson adds: “Mental strength is more and more incorporated in training, like putting pressure on the goalkeepers.”

Future of goalkeeping in handball

For Leynaud, the main challenge is “to improve constantly; the closer and faster handball gets, it is a huge challenge compared to the past. In that context, it is great for me to help my goalkeepers to become the best, but you always need to be honest as a coach.”

Bobby White’s session was more theoretical, focusing on the “coaches’ toolbox” from a pedagogic point of view, to design specialised training sessions. For the team captain of Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games, the event “puts the goalkeeper position more in the spotlight, it helped develop the coaches, as it fostered the understanding of how learning and motivation work, how to get the most out of your training sessions when you only have one hour per week, and to maximize the development of goalkeepers. In football and handball, goalkeeper training faces the same challenges: the availability of training times, space and coaches.”

One of the guests at the EHF Goalkeeper Summit was Portuguese Pedro Sequeira, who was re-elected as chairman of the EHF Methods Commission in September. For Sequeira, even more specialisation will imprint the future: “We need to show the handball community that it's not possible to have one coach doing everything. Some years ago, we started with special programmes for assistant coaches, followed by goalkeeper coaches, and I'm sure that in the future we will have other specialisations, like the analyst, the observer, physical condition, so this is our path.”

Photos © EHF/Eva Manhart