THE HARDEST JOB in football, David Forde tells me, is that of the substitute goalkeeper.
Forde was once the Ireland goalkeeper, and was recently involved in Stephen Kenny’s Ireland set-up as a wellness coach, having moved into performance coaching and mentoring at the end of his playing career.
“You hear people say you have to be crazy to be a goalkeeper but you have to be a lunatic to be a sub goalie”, he says.
“Your biggest challenge comes from your own mindset, as you’re battling against yourself all the time. The blame game kicks in: it’s everything and everyone else’s fault. That’s an emotional ticking bomb.
“You live in a kind of hopeful defiance, or hopeful anticipation: you’re always living in the future; in the imagination. The misuse of that imagination can lead to a lot of anxiety.”
Forde also believes Ireland’s goalkeeping options are the healthiest they have ever been.
“It’s great if you’re a fan”, he says, “but I wouldn’t like to be John O’Shea, picking them.”
It’s a tough job even to pick a substitute goalkeeper.
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Caoimhín Kelleher or Gavin Bazunu is heading for Oasis or Blur territory.
Both are evidently fantastic goalkeepers who have weathered intermittent squalls to prove they are comfortable at the highest level. But who should be Ireland’s number one?
Stephen Kenny picked Bazunu as he was playing more regularly, but Alisson Becker’s recent injury absence means that point of difference between them is no more.
The comparison between Kelleher and Bazunu is made more fascinating by the fact they have taken different paths: they are running on parallel tracks that merge during an international window.
While Kelleher has stuck around at Liverpool and become their undisputed number two, Bazunu shied away from that status at Manchester City.
Where Bazunu plays every week at a high level under big pressure, Kelleher plays sporadically at the very highest level under enormous pressure. Where Bazunu has more to do, Kelleher has less room for error.
Kelleher has made 43 senior club appearances in his career; Bazunu made 46 in the 2021/22 season alone. Kelleher is responsible for winning two Wembley cup finals; Bazunu has suffered two relegations.
It might have been very different. Manchester City scouted Bazunu at Shamrock Rovers as he fitted the profile of goalkeeper they wanted, which was Ederson 2.0. They were also looking for a number two, and so Zack Steffen arrived around the same time. He didn’t work out and Stefan Ortega – signed at the start of last season – has proved a more successful deputy, but he would not have arrived had Bazunu been happy to stick around. But Bazunu simply wanted to play, and virtually the only resource City didn’t have was an ability to meet Bazunu’s impatience.
Kelleher, meanwhile, has never even left Liverpool on loan. A temporary move to the Dutch Eredivisie was lined up in the summer window of 2020, but it was pulled because of an injury to Alisson.
Bazunu, by virtue of playing every week, retained number one status during Kenny’s reign.
David Preece is currently working as a goalkeeper coach with Bengaluru FC in India, and he has worked twice with Bazunu, first while working with Manchester City’s recruitment department when they were scouting him, and then at Rochdale in the 2020/21 season.
“The first thing that struck me about him was, ‘This is a serious, serious guy’”, Preece tells me when I ask him for his first impression of Bazunu. “Somebody so young but he was so intense, in a controlled way. He was ambitious, he questioned everything, he was so inquisitive.
“Everything was 100% – the intensity of his work, his attention to detail, the tactical detail. I’ve never seen a goalkeeper so switched on to everything.
I’ve seen him do shooting sessions where he’s faced between 50 and 100 shots, and he’s not conceded. And every shot was treated like it was the last minute of a first-team game.”
Forde echoes this character assessment. “I’ve always been impressed by his maturity for his age,” says Forde, “and his mental strength.”
That has been evident even to those of us in the media who feed on fleeting glimpses. Bazunu’s debut was the wretched 1-0 loss at home to Luxembourg, after which he faced a near-hysterical group of journalists via Zoom. His composure and confidence was such that the FAI kept the tape and use it for media training with younger players.
As for Kelleher, Preece says he is struck by his calmness, while Forde admires his ability to conquer the challenges of knowing he is number two.
“The patience and tolerance he has shown, I take my hat off to him,” says Forde. “Alisson is probably the world’s best goalkeeper, so for him to go in there and smash it out of the park is phenomenal.”
Bazunu made his international debut during that season with Rochdale, but also made poor errors in his club games immediately before and after the Luxembourg game in which he made his bow. Rochdale were then coached by Brian Barry-Murphy, who decided it was time to take his young goalkeeper out of the firing line. The same happened again toward the end of last season at Southampton, though the replacing of Bazunu with Alex McCarthy did not prevent the club’s relegation from the Premier League. Bazunu has re-established himself as the club’s number one in the Championship.
“It was a big learning curve for him”, says Preece. “It is a big leap so it takes a little bit of time to adjust to that. When you are taken out of the firing line, it give you a chance to analyse what you did and why you did it.
“With young goalkeepers, there is the same timeline. They will come in and make some errors, especially with the ball at their feet. Then they get them out of their way and can focus on other parts of the game.”
Kelleher, by contrast, hasn’t had the time to make mistakes.
“He has come into the side sporadically without first team football for weeks or months, and to come in and be at the level he is a credit to him and the coaching staff at Liverpool,” says Preece.
He is performing at such a high level, it is commendable.”
Preece explains that training cannot recreate what are specific game-type situations, which include set pieces but also tuning a ‘keeper’s depth perception of through balls and crosses. This has been an occasional issue for Kelleher in an Ireland jersey, most obviously in conceding the only goal of the 1-0 loss at home to Ukraine in June 2022.
But while Bazunu has thrived from playing regularly and riding the game’s emotional peaks and troughs, Preece says Kelleher has benefitted from working in Liverpool’s industry-leading goalkeeper department.
“The thought now behind one-v-one situations is exactly how Alisson deals with them, and how Kelleher is dealing with them,” he explains. “Watch any through ball: he immediately retreats to his six-yard box and works forward from there. This applies pressure on the striker as it gives them more thinking time, and it also gives you some time to adjust to any heavy touches, and it puts you in more control of the situation.”
Now, guess which club is copying this approach?
“Gavin is a brilliant athlete but sometimes he can be caught a little high, and it’s something Ederson has worked on,” continues Preece. “Ederson was often caught too high in one-v-one situations as his initial position is very high. So when the one-v-one comes, he is still too high, and it makes the situation easier for the striker.”
Acknowledging he is now entering the realm of the uber-critical, Preece has spotted another small issue in Bazunu’s game. He explains that a goalkeeper goes through different phases in saving a shot: the first is the ‘preparatory’ phase’ as the goalkeeper gets in the best position to save the incoming shot. Next is the ‘approaching phase’, which is as the player is approaching or about to strike.
This, Preece says, is the most important phase, and one in which the goalkeeper wants to be in their final position, and so be still and motionless, so as to give themselves the best chance to make the save. Preece says Bazunu is occasionally caught moving too much – that his preparatory phase bleeds into his approaching phase – and therefore isn’t fully ready to make the save. Perhaps this is partly why a disproportionate number of the goals Ireland conceded last year came from long range.
“Nobody would ever say it’s an error from him,” says Preece, “but looking it from my perspective: look at the brilliant saves he is making. That’s when he is in the right position early and is fully prepared for the shot.”
On the topic of distribution, Preece believes both are strong but, as ever, they have subtle differences. While Bazunu may have a wider passing range, Preece says Kelleher is outstanding in the first phase of build-up, which is the most important at Liverpool.
Preece explains that build-up from both goal kicks and open play are effectively set pieces nowadays, with players’ positions and passing options determined by how the opponent will press. It is in this facet of the game that Kelleher has excelled at Liverpool.
“Some say Gavin’s distribution is better than Caoimhín’s and I think, is it?”, wonders Preece. “Gavin’s is exceptional and he has a great range of passing, perhaps because he tries more difficult passes and is being asked to do different things at at Southampton which are a bit more eye-catching. For me, especially in the first phase of build-up when he has more pressure on him, he seems so calm.”
So, who would David Preece pick in goal against Belgium?
“It doesn’t matter if you’re playing a low block, a mid block, or winning the ball back high and defending a lot of space, they can both do it all.
“Comparing the two, Coaimhín is probably better in one-v-one situations and Gavin is a more proactive goalkeeper. Any doubts about the goals he has conceded or the little misjudgements he might make, it’s because Gavin is asked to be involved a lot more.
“It depends on the mentality of the next coach, really.”
Over to you, John.
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I am fascinated by the dynamic between both. Either would probably have been the Irish number one in any other era, but because they have coincided, one of them is fated to serve in the toughest job in football.
Forde is uniquely attuned to human dynamics and has also been a very recent member of the Irish camp, so he is well placed to judge how they get on.
“The lads have a phenomenal relationship,” he says. “In 20-odd years of football I find it’s a rare thing that the goalkeepers don’t get along.”
Forde explains there is a goalkeeper’s code, and it makes sense. Few should better understand the plight of the number two than the number one.
“The bit of work I did at the time was [explaining] that if another player had your place, to look at it from the point of view that ‘he is making me better.’ ‘He has the jersey, so I need to be better in myself.’
That changes the whole system. You’re taking out the sense of competition and bringing in competitiveness. Those subtle little reframes are very important. That is what it’s all about: they are there to make us better.”
This is a pretty exciting reality for Ireland.
As good as both currently are, they’ll continue making each other better.
