About the Academy
Why we do what we do?
The goalkeeper is the most unique position on the pitch. They are the only player that can use their hands, can see the entire field, is the last defender, and the first attacker. The goalkeeper must be good with the ball at their feet, be able to make split second decisions, direct play and players across the entire pitch, and be a leader both on and off the pitch.
QCGA understands the complications of being a goalkeeper and that the team training environment simply is not enough to get the number of repetitions and skill sets required to meet the keeper's potential.
Even at the professional level goalkeeping skills and processes are changing drastically and the Academy is changing to include both "old school" processes (catching, power step, staying big) vs new concepts (blocking, new starting stances, etc.). We see these new styles as additions not replacements for the older models. At the end of the day the requirement is to keep the ball out of the back of the net!
Coaching Staff
Director: Michael Noblet
Michael has 20+ years of experience coaching both goalkeepers and full teams at all levels (Recreational, Travel, Premier, High School, College, Professional Women's team). His keepers have played in and won state championships in High School, Travel and Premier soccer here in Maine. Both college programs he coached as keeper coach made NCAA tournament appearances during his tenure. He has been a keeper and a field player for over 40 years and has been heavily involved in the soccer community here in the Bangor area for over 20 years.
Michael ran the Seacoast United North Goalkeeper School (SUGS) in the Bangor area for 15 years before creating the Academy in 2022. The Academy was a way for Michael to extend the coaching of keepers beyond the High School and Club he was at to the entire area.
Guest Keeper Coaches:
The Academy brings in other area goalkeeper coaches to help and bring alternate points of view for the keepers within the Academy. Many of these coaches have been through programs our Director, Michael Noblet, has coached.
Why work with a dedicated goalkeeper coach?
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a goalkeeper as your team coach, the chances are that most teams do not have a coach with the skills, knowledge, or even the time to help keepers improve. Goalkeeper coaches have unique insight from the keeper's perspective that team coaches typically do not have.
Goalkeeping techniques are very specific and small tweaks can make the difference between a remarkably successful keeper and just an average shot stopper.
Offerings
We offer 7-8 week sessions every Monday night at Fields4Kids. Keepers are grouped by ability and will be assigned to groups that fit their current level of play.
All sessions are filmed using a Pixellot camera system and utilizing VidSwap software for analysis and sharing of video files from the sessions. The videos and analysis, as well as the lesson plans for each session with diagrams and coaching points, are available to both the academy keepers and their team coach if they are interested. This will also allow older keepers to put together highlight reels of their work outside the team for recruiting purposes.
The Academy can run single private sessions, but we have found that keepers learn better in a group environment so they can see others doing the same thing and having someone to push them.