A big thank you to Charlotte FC's Andy Quy for joining us for this special interview for Goalkeeper Week. The focus of the conversation was to provide insights to parents who are raising goalkeepers with High Performance dreams - a fitting discussion with Andy as he coached goalkeepers for over 15 years in the English Premier League before joining Charlotte FC for their inaugural season in the MLS.
Andy Quy
TRANSCRIPT:
Skye:
Welcome to Soccer Parenting and More Goalkeeping Week. We are in for a treat today, parents, because we are joined by Andy Quy. Andy, welcome to Soccer Parenting.
Andy:
Thank you Skye. Thank you for having me.
Skye:
Yeah, absolutely. For those of you listening, Andy started his playing career at Derby County, Hereford United, and then he went on as a coach professionally working with the Derby County and Aston Villa Academies, then landed at Stoke City for a long time. You were there for what, over 10 years?
Andy:
Yeah, 13 years in total with 10 really good years in the Premier League and a year's promotion before that to get in and then a couple more years in a championship. So yeah, a long time.
Skye:
Yeah, absolutely. Says a lot in that level in coaching to be able to be at one place for a long time. Andy then went on to Brentford, Burton Albion, and now he is in the United States working in the MLS for Charlotte FC. So Andy, hey, let's dive right into this conversation. Based on your experiences, your vast experiences in the game, I'm really curious and want to have a conversation that centers around the high performance player.
So let's give parents who have children, who have big dreams, some advice here in this conversation. And I'm kind of curious, I want to start out with, do you see any common attributes in the top level players, the players that are able to make it into the high level professional ranks, like any common characteristics, personality attributes, or themes that you see with them?
Andy:
Yeah, I mean, I think to start with, the first thing we always look for, whether they're young children, young soccer players or professionals, is sort of the basic attributes that they've got. Whether that be handling, footwork, then we'd look at sort of their athleticism. And I don't mean height by that, we're not always looking at height for goalkeepers, we're looking at their athletic ability, ability to move around the goal and to make saves and to move their body in different ways.
And then really at the highest level, we're looking at the mentality. And I think for me, the mentality of players is the key to being successful, to pushing on to that next level. Of course there'll be limitations with individuals' ability and athletic ability, but the thing that drives the top players to be the top and to go all the way is the mentality and the focus and the desire to be the best and to develop and to improve it every day.
Skye:
I love it. So the mentality, the desire, the focus. Can you dive in a little bit more and maybe go a little bit deeper in what we're talking about when you say their desire to be the best? Like how does that play out with a goalkeeper when it comes to what you're seeing from them, their actions?
Andy:
Yeah, I mean some of the top goalkeepers that I've worked with, I mean to name two, and I don't want to single those two out, but Asmir Begovic, who was with me at Stoke for a long time and moved on to Chelsea, now at Everton, and Jack Butland, who we bought from Birmingham, played for Stoke and he's now at Crystal Palace. Two goalkeepers with, and it's a difficult thing to put your finger on to be honest with you, but they've just got this real determination, focus from a young age and you see lots of young players, boys and girls that will say they want to be the best, but how do they go about doing that?
What do they do in their everyday lives to strive to be the best? Is it their diet? Is it their workout programs? It's being able to put into every single workout program that they carry out, that focus of where they want to get to, what their end goal is. Is it they want to play in the Premier League? Is it that they want to play for their country and represent their country? And within every session that they do, there's a little bit in the back of their mind telling them that's where they want to be and this is going to help them move on the right path.
And they recover in the right way, they stretch and they eat the right things and they drink the right things and they get enough sleep and all of those things that they need to do. And especially as young athletes, young footballers, goalkeepers. They're the things that everybody needs to do and sometimes finds it very difficult to do, but they're the things that people don't see. The hard work away from the training ground, away from the gym and the pitch and a match day that really push you and allow you to be the best version of yourself and to be the best you can be.
And they also have a mentality that's open-minded. They'll listen to the coaches that they work with and they'll try new things, they'll stick with them if they believe and believe in what they're being told and what they're being taught. And so that sort of level of understanding of how people are trying to help them, how they're trying to guide them through the game and develop upon a daily basis is the biggest thing really.
Skye:
Yeah, no, I love it. Thank you so much for diving in there. Those insights are really valuable. What about the opposite, maybe the goalkeepers that didn't make it? Any common attributes or themes that come to mind with those goalkeepers?
Andy:
Yeah, I mean all of those things that I've just spoken about there away from the pitch, I think are there things that probably have stopped young goalkeepers from making it to top level. There's some fine margins between, we all talk about the 1%, but those fine margins between the individual athletes, individual goalkeepers that have the ability,
But how do they use that ability? How do they take what they've learned on the training ground into a game and stay focused for 90 plus minutes, pull out the big savings at the right time, and how do they deal with adversity as well? Whether they're dealing with injuries or a poor game or a poor team performance, not allowing those things to affect them and stay on the right path to where they want to get to. And for me, they're the biggest things that can stop young players, young athletes getting to where they want to be.
Skye:
Yeah, I love it. You mentioned this 1%, I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, we were talking about 1% and we came up, we started talking about this idea of luck. Sometimes luck is a little bit a part of this. Do you ever think about that?
Andy:
Oh, certainly. And I think there's something that every young goalkeeper, athlete has to be aware of, and especially for parents on the outside as well. There's so many things that will attribute to somebody being successful. And it's not just working hard on the training ground and luck certainly comes into it. And those two goalkeepers that I just mentioned, both gained opportunities as young goalkeepers because of injuries to other people.
At one time, Jack got his opportunity because of an injury to Asmir. Unfortunately, Jack gained an injury and other people got their chances after that. So those things, we call it luck, bad luck for some, good luck for others and that certainly does play a part, but my biggest thing would be to control what you control, which we always talk about. Work hard in whether it be on the pitch, in the gym. Do the right things away from the pitch and you earn your luck. And I think that's the one thing I've always said is you have to earn your luck and you have to do that by, you earn your luck by doing the right things.
Skye:
Love it. Thanks. Diving in big picture, maybe a little bit more higher level to your process as a professional level coach, when it comes to identifying a goalkeeper that you're interested in, scouting them. Can you maybe enlighten us a little bit to this big process that happens behind the scenes that maybe we don't have as much information or insights about?
Andy:
Yeah, I think when we are looking to identify goalkeepers for now to come into Charlotte, and we went through a big process with that as a new club, a new franchise in the MLS, we had to find a whole squad, but we had to find three or four goalkeepers that would fit into the style of play that we wanted, that would fit the culture of the club as well, that would work together in a good way. So there was lots of things that came into that.
First of all, the normal things that I've spoke about, shot stopping ability, how they play out in possession, how they play out of possession, how they control the space. So they were big things for us. We obviously want someone that's going to make lots of saves, and this probably goes for every team, but you always want somebody that's going to make lots of saves and kick the ball out of the net in big moments.
We want somebody that can control possession that's calm in possession, that can pass over a range of distances. And then also to be able to control the space between him and the back line to be mobile and to be able to sweep behind the back before because of, we want to play high lines. So they're probably the key attributes that come, that we look for first of all. And then once we've been through that process and narrowed it down, it's a little bit, well, a lot about the character of the person. How calm are they? Are they a leader? Do they communicate well? And then do we think they will settle moving from wherever they they've been living, whether that be within the United States or Europe, elsewhere. Will they settle and will moving to Charlotte be a good move for them?
Skye:
Now is it there agents that are reaching out to you? Is there the scouting network? Can you give us some insights into that process?
Andy:
Yeah, no, we've got a fantastic scouting department at Charlotte. It's obviously a new department. It's been built up, been working together for nearly three years now. So a long time before this season came, the guys have been looking at players for every position, especially goalkeepers. They'll narrow players down, they'll use statistics, they'll allow players that they've seen before, they'll obviously be agents pushing players towards them. And we'll take a view on all of them.
They'll narrow the search down and pass it to me as a goalkeeping coach to look at. And then from there, we'll narrow that group down as to how they'll fit into what we need. Number one, number two, number three, where they fit into that. And then we start to tactically put that group together and hopefully make it work, which we've seen to do quite well. We've had four really good goalkeepers. We've taken two from MLS clubs. We took Kristijan Kahlina from Ludogorets in Bulgaria, and then we took George Marks from the college draft as well. So we put a really good group together. They've worked well together and they've all had really successful seasons so far.
Skye:
Yeah, thanks for that. I mean, seeing a little bit of behind the scenes how that process works is a conversation that I don't think that we hear a lot, so I appreciate those insights.
Andy:
No, no.
Skye:
As we're wrapping up, based on your experiences playing, based on your experiences as a parent, based on your experiences a coach, what advice do you have for parents who have kids with big dreams?
Andy:
The biggest thing for me is to encourage your kids to develop and allow them to develop. I can't say don't push them or encourage them. It's encouraging them in the right way. It's listening to the coaches and listening to lots of different coaches as well. Understanding how different coaches see the game and want it to be played and your child may fit differently or better or worse to a certain coach and a certain style of play, that's for sure. So looking at your child objectively in some ways, looking at how they play, how they feature in a game, even what their best position is as a young player. As a nine to 12-year-old, is goalkeeper their best position? Is center forward their best position? Should they be a goalkeeper?
So looking at all of those things and then just allowing them to develop and the focus being on developing, there's so much focus on the big goal, as I said earlier, want to play in a premier league, wants to play in the first team, wants to play for your national team, and everybody wants to do that. I'm sure every young child sets out and has this dream of playing for their national team, but there's a long process along the way and that has to be the goal. But you have to reach all these small goals along the way, and for me, development is the biggest thing.
How can I be a better player? What's going to make me a better player? And as we said a little earlier, there's luck that comes into it. There's so many other things. There's that, managers will change, coaches will change, injuries will happen. So there's so many different things that will happen and put roadblocks in your way and then it's how you deal with those, how you overcome them. Covid's something that's either stopped to accelerated many young children's development over the last few years.
Some people who have stopped playing altogether haven't had opportunities. Some have been able to find opportunities out of the blue and being able to push on and develop and take an advantage of where others haven't. So yeah, for me it is just being able to develop, being able to improve every day. And if that's your focus, you'll find your end goal and you'll find your pathway and you will end up where you're deemed to end up.
Skye:
Love it. Love it. Andy Quy, thank you so much for your insights and sharing your time with us today, sharing your experiences with us at Soccer Parenting. We appreciate you being here.
Andy:
Thank you very much Skye. It's been a pleasure and good luck to all those young children, young athletes, young goalkeepers that you've got out there.