I don't know much about soccer but I read an article that said that the most important differentiator of great vs not great goalies is their ability to set up their team to score, not their ability to stop goals. I recall it argued there are limited shots on goal and the majority of variability on whether a shot goes in is beyond the control of the goalie regardless of skill, so great goalies only make a difference of a few goals a year from stopping skill. But effectively setting up the offense produces much more increase in goals, so even a middling stopping goalie who sets up the offense well produces a net goal benefit for their team relative to a great stopping goalie who doesn't set up the offense well. Thoughts? I have no ability to evaluate the argument but generally think more scoring in soccer would be better so I liked the thought.
See Lawpoke's response. Upper level GKs must be a 5th backline player to play through and relieve pressure in order to keep possession and help a team build out of the back. The best GKs can also see the vulnerabilities in the oppositions formation and figure out what they're trying to do so they can help their team defeat that. My son is actually excellent at that stuff. Had he been 6'1 instead of 5'11 and he's playing in college somewhere. The days of playing the pure shot stopper are done. If you can't play with the ball at your feet, you're not going very far.
If you want to see the difference go back and watch how Manuel Neuer was used at Bayern as well as on the German national team. Also, you can tell whether or not a GK is going to be good or not by 2 things: 1) Do they take their own goal kicks? If so move to question 2, if they don't you know the team struggles to play out of the back, and 2) Do the defenders play the ball back to the GK regularly when they are under pressure? This says the team values possession and they are confident in being able to keep it and work the ball out of the back with the GK as the trigger. A good example of this is TUs men's team with Alex Lopez in goal. Opponents will not press him when he has the ball because it's giving up a defender and TU can move the ball upfield quickly. The women's team does not do this. And rarely do you see the men's team punt the ball long distance or just hit long goal kicks.
The US is slightly behind in developing their GKs to play this way as usually the shot stopping is the value coaches look for at the youth levels here. Tim Howard wasn't particularly great with his feet but he was a superb shot stopper. Brad Guzan wasn't as good of a shot stopper but he had much better feet and distribution than Howard did. Right now the USMNT lacks GKs with even serviceable feet (IMO) for that level. It's a huge deficiency and problem. Whoever played GK vs Canada is probably the best with his feet in comparison to the others who have been getting call ups (Turner, Horvath, Steffen, Johnson).
