Under Pressure: The Mental Burden of Playing Goalie

Playing a sport by itself requires many qualities from an athlete. A player needs to give their all, whether that be their strength, mentality, free time and many other attributes and sacrifices.

Every day, teams walk onto the field and work together as hard as they can to succeed. This happens through close games and easy wins, but teams learn more about themselves through hard-fought wins and dramatic losses. In those moments, those with calm heads and steady nerves tend to prevail, and unfortunately for one position, the steadiest of nerves are both tested and required.

Goalies sit at each end of the field for every game, watching and waiting.

Credits to ARC Lacrosse

Natalia Asali-Ramos has been playing lacrosse for six years, but even with that experience, it seems the weight of the position can still be a burden.

“When there is no one on defense, or anyone surrounding the ball, and it’s just me, it’s stressful. When defense is there, I feel less stressed about having to make a save because it has to go through everyone else before me.” She feels comforted by the presence of other players helping her protect the goal.

Asali-Ramos elaborates on the stressful toll being a goalie has on her mentality when on the field.

“Having the pressure of winning or losing the game has really affected me. While playing all I can think about is if we win or lose, and sometimes it has caused me to play worse because of the thought of losing.”

Not only is the overwhelmingness of the position causing her some lack of confidence but affecting her performance. Hence the reason she’s decided — after six long years of trial, error, and perseverance — to quit.

“The reason I quit was partially because of the stress I feel as a goalie. It stressed me out a lot thinking about winning or losing the games. Another reason I quit was because of the coach and team. My coach for club was not the best particularly, and the team was all part of a clique.”

Natalia explains the environment that club lacrosse provided did not help her positively and only caused all the more tension in her relationship with the position of goalie.

“It’s becoming tiring and hard for me to even want to show up anymore because I do not enjoy playing anymore.” Asali-Ramos has seemingly lost her love for the sport and now only looks to continue playing only in season at school, Eastside Catholic.

Recently, she’s been leaning more towards focusing on her schoolwork rather than playing lacrosse.

“I used to think that lacrosse was something that I would play forever and that I would play D1 lacrosse, but that vision changed over time.

I used to weigh sports more than school, but now that I’ve chosen to stop playing, I’ve started to choose school over sports.” Asali-Ramos explains balancing her academic work and playing lacrosse has been difficult, and one of the reasons she’s leaned towards her decision to quitting club lacrosse altogether.

“I’ve started to do homework during school, or before I go to practice because I have late night practices, which have made it hard for me to do homework at any other times.” She further explains the struggle that lacrosse has put on her after school agenda.

Not only is the scheduling and balancing act hard, but playing the position itself has become overbearing on Asali-Ramos.

However, Natalia isn’t the only goalie feeling an insane amount of pressure on her.

Credits to Eastside Catholic

Alex Ruiz-Suarez played as a goalie for about two years and was assigned the role due to her fearlessness of the soccer ball.

“Mentally, it just created a lot of problems where I was always so afraid of letting people down, and now I just kind of hate disappointing myself and others. I don’t think being a goalie was the main reason for this, but it didn’t help.”

Ruiz-Suarez shares a similar perspective as related to Asali Ramos’s.

“When you do manage to prevent a goal, that [exhilarating] feeling takes a while to go away, which is a really positive thing! But a negative is just, especially when you have a competitive team, there’s always that thought in the back of your head where they blame you [for the other team’s goal]”.

But also similar to Ramos, Ruiz-Suarez has come around to the idea that her priorities don’t lay between the goalposts, but the books.

“Ultimately, I think academics matters more because sports can only take you so far before you have to stop or you have to retire. Whereas with academics, it’s such a larger branch, and there’s not as many limits.”

Ruiz-Suarez steps into the logical side of thinking when it comes to whether athletics or school comes first. She makes a great point, where sports may seem like everything initially, but can take a dip due to incidents such as injuries.

“I began to think more about not getting more hurt, or having it show as much because I didn’t want it to affect the way I played.” Natalia Asali-Ramos responds, reflecting on a past injury during playing time.

“There were times I couldn’t even play because it was hurting so bad, but it made me digress my learning and skill as a goalie.” Asali-Ramos acknowledges the learning opportunity an injury can provide, but unfortunately realizes the effect an injury can have on a goalie’s mentality. Especially when they can feel the fate of the game relies on them.

“The goalie is just the last line of defense before the other team can score, so if you kind of fail, then you’ve let the team down, which can cause the team to lose. And with [soccer’s] offense, if you don’t score, you just don’t score, and there’s really no huge consequence.”

Ruiz-Suarez expresses the difference between scoring a goal and preventing a goal, and how the consequences differentiate between the two positions. Like she said, “if you don’t score, you just score and there’s really no huge consequence.” But being goalie, being scored on is not a good feeling.

Logan Hellyar shares an almost exact opinion. She has played soccer for nine years and goalie for eight of those nine years. “I’m the last line of defense, so my mistakes cause goals [for the other team], while if a forward just misses a shot, the consequences aren’t as bad.”

Asali-Ramos notes that “Sometimes when it’s a tight game and you get scored on, it stresses me out, or when it’s an easy game and the shot that goes in isn’t even a good shot [from the opposing team], I feel like I’ve failed my team.”

The position has affected the mentality of all three of these goalies when on the playing field. Just as it has stripped the feeling of victory when blocking a goal. If they’re scored on, that failure overpowers any positive emotion when previously preventing a point for the other team.

Logan says she “[doesn’t] really remember not playing soccer but it affects me by not having a lot of time for anything else like hobbies. And a lot of times when I get home, I’m often really tired and don’t want to do things after practice.”

Ruiz-Suarez expresses a similar experience but looks at the bright side as well. “There just comes a point where you get used to balancing your sport and social life. Although it sucks to sometimes have to say that you can’t go to things because you’ve got practice, you also find family within the team.”

“There are times I’ve been left out of plans because I have practice, and its hard to miss class so much for tournaments because I would miss tests or quizzes.” Asali-Ramos states its not only difficult to handle her social life, but harsh on her workload from school. Without mentioning the exhaustion due to the harsh drills at practice.

“Most nights I leave my homework until after practice, so I’m very tired, which makes me rush my homework.” Logan further elaborates how important her sport is to her. “I prefer soccer over school but I do try and get good grades so I can get into a good school to continue playing soccer.”

Hellyar’s vision is clear that she strives to continue playing soccer, just as Asali-Ramos once thought out her future before planning to focus more on academics after losing that original enjoyment she had for the sport.

While playing sports is meant to be enjoyable and exhilarating, the stress of being a goalie tends to gradually sink its teeth into those playing the playing the position. Some manage the pressure more than others, but no matter what sport or position you play, a little extra appreciation for the goalies is in order.