Goalkeepers' Union

This week's feature interview is another enlightening discussion with a goalkeeper coach.

Just like James Belshaw last week, Joe Prodomo has a unique story to tell. A modest non-league playing career suggested no immediate signs of a transition into professional coaching. If anything, a shot at teaching appeared to be his likely path.

Then an impromptu gig with Weymouth - thanks to connections between his twin brother and then Terras manager, Mark Molesley - would prove to be the catalyst for a rather rapid rise into the EFL.

A spell working in a thriving setup at Bournemouth saw him develop under the likes of Neil Moss and Anthony White. That experience led to a first-team role with Southend, before a return to Bournemouth and subsequent switch along the south coast to Portsmouth.

At 31, Joe is a First Team Goalkeeper Coach at a League One club.

Opportunity presented. Opportunity grasped.

After much consultation, it was decided to record this week's Between the Sticks before the second round of Easter EFL fixtures.

Reasons being threefold:

1) Aaron Ramsdale pulled off that performance against Liverpool and it couldn't wait another two days to talk about.
2) Ivan Toney saw a penalty saved by Nick Pope after Rich claimed in last week's show that the Brentford man would never not score another penalty (and it couldn't wait another two days to talk about).
3) Rich was genuinely recognised at the airport (and that definitely couldn't wait another two days to talk about).

So here we are with a bunch of brilliant goalkeeping action to cover from Friday through Sunday.

Jordan Pickford kept the score down with nine saves at Old Trafford, Ben Amos joined him for Performance of the Weekend with a series of stops in Wigan's defeat to Sheffield United and Walsall's Owen Evans can consider himself extremely unlucky at conceding a fourth goal that categorically never was against Rochdale.

This week's feature interview provides yet another take on the route into professional goalkeeping.

James Belshaw has had quite the journey. A journey saturated with sliding doors.

After turning down a pro contract at Walsall, he opted to put education first and fled the country to North Carolina where he earned honours in History, Business, Marketing and Management at Duke University.

An offer from Chicago Fire followed, but his choice was to return home and restart a career with lowly Nuneaton. Next came Tamworth. Then Harrogate. And, slowly but surely with promotion after promotion, he realised a dream of playing EFL football.

He was 30 when he made his professional debut. 

Now with Bristol Rovers in League One, James – who bagged Player of the Year at the Gas last season – recounts his travels in incredibly articulate fashion.

Really good listen, this. Belly's a great guy with a rather unique story.

Remember when penalties used to purely be about the taker trying to score past the goalkeeper?

Sure. The premise remains the same, but over the years odds have gradually been strengthened in that taker's favour. And just when you thought restrictions upon goalkeepers in such a scenario couldn't be restricted any further, IFAB have decided to dig just that little bit deeper in the past week.

As of July 1 of this year, goalkeepers are no longer allowed to "taunt" takers during penalties. Free shots from 12 yards, remember. But, no, seemingly that is not enough of an advantage.

Naturally, that is where we begin what is a quick Between the Sticks. With Rich hopping on a plane for some global goalkeeping business, we recorded this one swiftly after the Super Sunday games had finished.

That's it. We've eked out every last drop of our chat with Rob Green, so here's the third and final instalment in the trilogy of chats.

Aside from discussing his final ever season with Chelsea, Rob goes into detail about that moment against USA at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He doesn't pull any punches and lifts the lid on what life was like under Fabio Capello, how he dealt with the critics and how he bounced back.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this mini-series. More chats have been lined up for the coming weeks, so feature interviews shall return in due course.

As you have no doubt already seen, ex-Premier League and England goalkeeper Ben Foster has come out of retirement to join Wrexham AFC.

So much to be said on this one, especially considering Rich played a huge part in orchestrating the move.

Here's a quick 15 minutes explaining how the deal was conceived, negotiations with Wrexham and why it's a decent match-up for both parties.

You can't be a bit of FA Cup action, which is why the Quarter Finals kick off this week's show.

We start at Old Trafford with a great save from, er, Willian, and discuss questionable ITV Sport punditry regarding the performances of David de Gea and Sheffield United's Wesley Foderingham.

In the Premier League, Illan Meslier continues to add to his growing roster of youthful landmarks, David Raya has been labelled a No10 by Brentford's media team and divisional debuts were welcomed in the form of Dan Iversen and Joe Whitworth.

Elsewhere, Angus Gunn - called up to the Scotland squad following his switch of international allegiance - takes centre stage with impressive Championship stats at Norwich, Christian Walton kept a seventh successive shutout and Jamie Cumming throws his gloves in the ring for this matchday's Save of the Weekend contender.

Finally, an honourable mention goes to ex-England No1, Carly Telford, who called time on a 20-year playing career last week. Onto the next step.

It's been a while since we've conducted a proper feature interview, so we're delighted to post this latest podcast with ex-Manchester City and Chelsea stopper, Willy Caballero.

Now at Southampton, Willy charts his rise from humble beginnings in Argentina to saving penalties in EFL Cup Final shootouts at Wembley.

We talk Joe Hart and Edwin van der Sar, a tricky transition from La Liga to the Premier League and, of course, that moment with Kepa in 2019.

It appears there may have been something in the goalkeeping water this weekend.

From Nick Pope not giving away a penalty to forward roll fights and Harry Lewis nonchalantly catching a ball over the top a good ten yards outside of his area, the global glovesmen game veered a little left field.

And that's what we love, of course. Because it gives us plenty to talk about, in addition to the customary analysis of super saves from the likes of Emi Martinez, Fraser Forster and Gavin Bazunu - the latter keeping a clean sheet at Old Trafford in what could be a vital point for Southampton come May.

Elsewhere, Jak Alnwick made it successive Saturdays for Cardiff 'keepers to see red, while Christian Walton broke a club record at Ipswich by going six games without conceding.

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Following another week's hiatus (apologies, unforeseen circumstances meant recording had to take a back seat last week) we've hopefully made up for it with a comprehensive analysis of the weekend just gone – plus a few snippets from the previous week missed.

That means a look at Loris Karius' comeback performance in the Carabao Cup Final, a clean sheet record broken by David de Gea and a landmark reached by Ederson.

Robert Sanchez comes into focus after being dropped for the first time since claiming the gloves from Maty Ryan back in December 2020, Karl Darlow bags his break at Hull and Paul Farman continues to rack up MOM awards with Barrow.

Text Talk also returns in the form of Bristol Rovers stopper James Belshaw, and Rich has a tale to tell about rubbing shoulders with Carlo Cudicini, Mikael Silvestre and Tony Bellew.