Is There Such a Thing as an ‘Unstoppable Shot’?

We’ve all been in the situation when we’re on the receiving end of a so-called worldie. The commentator gets euphoric and claims that it was an unstoppable shot… but was it, though?

Don’t get me wrong it’s nice to for once not being made accountable for a conceded goal but I think it’s not that simple. In my philosophy of goalkeeping, there is not one conceded goal where a keeper can state to perfectly have done everything possible to save the shot.
Does that sound hypercritical? It probably does, but I challenge every goalkeeper to think of any goal they’ve ever conceded – there will always be the thought of “what if?”.

Every goal conceded leaves some room for improvement, even if it’s the smallest possible margin like a slightly quicker movement, an earlier step, or a bigger push. Even if the goalkeeper chose the correct technique and made every decision right, there’s always something that could have been executed better in some way. This doesn’t even mean that the individual shot would have been saved, but it means that the likelihood of saving the shot would have been higher.

This perspective doesn’t aim to belittle the goalkeeper or to blame them for everything… it’s quite the opposite! This perspective should encourage goalkeepers to reflect and develop; to always analyze their game. It is easy to call a shot unstoppable, push away responsibility and not reflect on what could have been done better. This suffocates progress. If a goalkeeper doesn’t see ways to improve, development will just stagnate.

There are extremely difficult shots to save. That’s for sure. I would rather call these ‘worldies’ instead of unstoppable. That way, I can appreciate the outstanding performance of the opposition player, but also trust my abilities to save a shot like that under ideal conditions on another day where I execute my skills perfectly. Otherwise, why would I even want to develop and try to make a save? Calling a shot ‘unstoppable’ limits my abilities and takes control away from me as a goalkeeper. I don’t want to accept that.