Robinson talks goalkeeping philosophy, ambitions, coach education, and how he aims to take goalkeeping forward in the USA.
Header Image: U.S. Soccer
After nearly six years assisting John Achterberg and Claudio Taffarel to keep Liverpool’s world class goalkeeping department at its best, Jack Robinson has stepped into a number one role of his own.
In August 2024, the Englishman swapped Anfield for America to take up a new role at the head of U.S. Soccer’s goalkeeping setup.
Whilst his new adventure Stateside brings a new type of coaching challenge for Robinson, it also marks the end of an incredible journey. For Robinson, the end of the Liverpool chapter closed the book on the “best six years of my life”.
“It was just amazing to be a part of”, he begins, speaking exclusively to Goalkeeper.com. In the background of his home office is a wall portraying a glittering collage of some of the biggest moments from his 15+ year coaching career to date. More specifically, pictures of the people that made that journey so special.
“The biggest thing I will remember is the people that were there at Liverpool. That’s right from the fans to the dinner ladies that give you stick if you don't win on the weekend, and it's those people that made the whole thing special. So Jurgen, right at the top, is the one driving the culture and setting the expectations for the players and the staff.
"But everybody bought into that culture, and everybody wanted the best for the club, for the players, for the fans, for the staff that were there. It was an elite environment in so many senses of the word”, he reminisces.
As the old adage goes, when one door closes, another opens. Robinson’s career opportunities have put him through the trials that come with coaching across age groups and abilities. Beginning his coaching journey in the academy at Leeds United, Robinson later had spells with Crystal Palace, Manchester United, and the England youth teams before joining Liverpool in the autumn of 2018.
The concept of coaching assumes a different nature as you transition between these different environments. “It’s not so much that you become a mentor, but things change so you are just constantly preparing goalkeepers like Alisson, Adrian, Kelleher to go out and perform on the weekend”, he explains.
“For the younger guys in there, you're going back to that coaching, that teaching, that individual development, that they need to go and get better and improve. You’re trying to provide them an acceleration of experience, whether it’s game time with the U23s or a loan or something else.”
“We were lucky that we were quite stable with the goalkeepers that we had within the club when I was there. On the youth side, myself and John [Achterberg] did a lot of work, watching as many goalkeepers as we possibly could. John has an encyclopaedic knowledge of every goalkeeper from the age of like 9 up to 33 in the whole of the world! We did use some data, although we used much more when I was working at the FA.
All of the areas that Robinson touched day to day in his work at Liverpool accumulate under his new brief with U.S. Soccer. He oversees these interconnected pathways and is responsible for devising and optimising them under new Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino. The ex-Liverpool man is joining a strong British presence at the top of the new-look U.S. Soccer setup. It includes ex-Chelsea duo Emma Hayes and Stuart Searle on the Women’s side, and ex-Southampton Technical Director Matt Crocker, who helped establish the FA’s ‘England DNA’.
“It’s going to be a different challenge,” he admits.
“I’ve gone from Liverpool, where you're playing potentially 60 games a season, to potentially playing two games a month, on an international calendar. It’ll be very different in terms of my actual time on the grass in this role, because I'll be based across the men's, women's, and the education side, and the talent ID of the youth as well.”
The role ties together all the elements of Robinson’s career so far, and there will be no shortage of testing grounds as he looks to stamp his mark on the set up. “This will also give an opportunity to go and look at the different age groups, look at the different teams, and provide support on camp.
“I’m looking at the longer term project here, looking at how we can develop the support for, first and foremost, obviously the national teams going into the international breaks, and obviously the 2026 World Cup between Canada, Mexico and the US. But also you've got the Women's World Cup in 2027, you've got the Olympics in 2028, the U20s World Cups for the men's and women's, the U17s World Cups, there's the CONCACAF competition as well.”
On the educational side of the job, Robinson also faces the task of centralising a devolved coach education setup in the States to-date. He recognises that individuals “have been doing some really good work supporting coaches” but that part of his work is to define what a US goalkeeper looks like in the long term - and subsequently, how coaches can build programmes that contribute to the execution of this vision.
There is no fog or delay in Robinson’s answer when asked what exactly this vision is - both on an institutional and personal level.
“There’s three things that I want to do with this new role. I want to challenge what already exists before in terms of the coaches and the goalkeepers that are within the setup. I want to inspire as well, so those that see an opportunity, they get that chance to be inspired by either what we do at training, by the educational courses that we put on, or by the things we might go and do in different environments. And then, third, engage with the broader soccer world in the US.
“In terms of my own personal philosophy, I think there's three things you need to look at. Number one: what does the individual you're working with require? Then, what does the team require of the goalkeeper? At Liverpool, we played the high line. We wanted to build up from the back, so the goalkeeper has to be involved in that team. For other teams, it might be that you just want the goalkeeper to stay on the line, be deep and just defend the goal. So you have to understand what the team requires from the goalkeeper.”
“The final thing,” he continues, “is what is required in relation to the opposition. So how are they going to try and score? How are they going to press? And how do we, how do we exploit out of the space in possession, or defend the goal, or defend the space or the area in the most effective way we can.”
Robinson is keen to stress that, as he undertakes this challenge and - as he states - wants to push the existing environment, thought, and practices in a new context, that previous good work is recognised.
“The likes of Phil Weddon, Aaron Hyde, a number of other goalkeeper coaches within the men's side, have done some great work. The women's side are performing spectacularly well. You know, Stuart Searle’s gone in with Emma Hayes as the goalkeeper coach for the USWNT. They obviously had massive success in the summer, and the goalkeepers were a huge part of that success as well.”
Robinson’s eye is also never far from the academy pitches that he learnt his coaching trade on, telling us that “there's some good young goalkeepers, We brought a few into the last camp that we had against Canada and New Zealand, and they performed really well, both on and off the pitch. Lots of the parts are in place, but it needs to be aligned.
“It's similar to the sort of experience I had with the FA, creating that England DNA. You're creating an almost club-like mentality within an international environment, that everybody is striving for the same goals and striving to make US soccer much better”, he explains.
Whilst Robinson admits that he’s “in the infancy” of defining a new coach education strategy, he does explain that the necessary conversations are underway.
“They've just released the USSF GK C Licence for goalkeeping in the USA. We're then looking to start to progress with the B Licence. But a big thing about this is recruiting people who are going to teach that. We have to identify locations and areas that we would do that. We also need to look at what the curriculum is going to hold and how we define what we want our coaches to deliver, to produce the goalkeepers that are going to help us to win in the future as part of the US.
“There’s also a lot of other good material out there, in webinars or in the media, like you guys are doing at Goalkeeper.com. It's how we can get our message out there that we need to look at as well.”
The phrase ‘modern goalkeeper coach’ is perhaps too cliche. But, in the same way that Robinson notes the wealth of information available to aspiring coaches online, the quantity of information available for coaches is only growing. Whether in sports science, psychology, or properly informed performance data, he notes that it is important that such material is contextualised and provided by experts.
All of these experiences, tools, and beliefs are now geared towards one thing: getting the United States to a higher rung of the football ladder.
“The immediate aim is to have a team that is ready to compete in the World Cup and give the best showing that we possibly can. I think Mauricio has come out and said that we should be aiming to win it. You know, that should be our idea, that should be our dream, and that's what we should be aiming for.
“I think for all the goalkeepers that are in the mix, they have an opportunity to show us from the camp in October right the way through, that they deserve to have that spot. The number one jersey is there. And you know, Matt [Turner] has shown over the years that he has performed really well when the pressure has come. And if he can keep doing that, then that's great. If someone else wants to come and challenge, then that's their opportunity to challenge as well.”
Over nearly twenty years, goalkeeping has taken Jack Robinson around the world. Today, he finds himself straddling the Atlantic Ocean between family life and professional excellence in America. He’s used to diving in head first and learning on the job. This new challenge may be different, but he’s no stranger to challenges.
“Each time I’ve gone to a new place, it’s not the case that I’ve been 100% ready to go to those places. I was living in London and got the opportunity to move to Manchester United. It was for a part time role. My wife was living in London, I was moving to Manchester by myself for a part time role. It was like, ‘can I do this?’ I was teaching at the same time. So it was a risk, but I've always been willing to take that risk and back myself to develop that opportunity.
“I've always tried to push myself outside my comfort zone and push myself to get better and take on board everything I've done and thankfully think these things have paid off. Having that openness was really important.”
Robinson may not have quite fitted the growth projection charts as a teenager in the Leeds United academy, but there have been no bounds on the heights of his ambition and belief.
“I was let go from Leeds at 16. My dream was to be a footballer. I was too small. But I had belief in myself. You will make the right decisions if you have that belief, back yourself, and give it your all when the opportunity comes knocking.”
