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Keeper has quickly become one of my personal favorite positions to play inREMATCH. Perfectly timing a dive to prevent a potential match-altering goal is a feeling that’s arguably second to none in thispromising AA game.
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In fact, I’ve come to have such a good time playing keeper compared to other positions on the pitch that I wish REMATCH featured a mode with static field assignments as opposed to automatically swapping you around the field after each goal. Maybe someday.
Regardless, though you’ll obviously be covering the least amount of ground as the goalie, there’s still plenty to learn in order to be an effective net tender.
Let’s take a look at a handful of strategies you can employ in order to have the best odds at a clean sheet whenever you’re in goal.
Goalkeeper Controls
Let’s start with the basics. REMATCH will automatically take you through a tutorial when you first boot the game up, and how to play goalkeeper is part of that process.
If you need a refresher or want to knowsome things the game doesn’t bother to teach you, goalie controls really couldn’t be much simpler. While the actual controls menu doesn’t note this (for some reason), step one isgetting into your defensive stance by holding L2, or your respective controller’s counterpart.
With L2 held, you’ll face the action and can strafe back and forth in front of the goal line.Pressing Triangle while in your L2-held stance will send you diving in whatever angle/direction you’re holding the left stick. If you press Triangle without a thumbstick direction, you’ll jump straight up.
Aside from this, you can also use some stamina todash side to side with X while still holding L2 to strafe a bit more quicklyin your desired direction. You can alsopress Circle to tackle/slide for a loose ballin order to grab it before the opposing team can.Turbo on L1 will also help you reach the ball more quicklyif you need to hustle.
Lastly, when you’re holding the ball, you have three options to get it to your teammates.
Goalkeeper Tips For Success
Controls are one thing, but they won’t get you anywhere if you don’t know some basic strategy to be a decent keeper. Here are a collection of tips I’ve gathered from my time with REMATCH so far, as well as from being the best goalie during recess in elementary school growing up.
Stay In The Box And Work Your Angles
Formostof a round of REMATCH,you really shouldn’t stray too far from the boxif you’re currently playing goalkeeper. Opponents can very quickly launch end-to-end shots, and getting caught outside the goal only to be burned by an unexpected deep ball feels terrible and embarrassing.
Be a good team player, and spend your turn as keeper seriously. You’re here for one job, and that’s to prevent opposing goals.
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As such, you need toplay your angles while in the net. As the other team approaches,shrink the goal towards whatever direction they currently have the ball. If they’re to your left,hedge left. If they’re at midfield,stay centered. If they’re to your right, you guessed it,hedge right.
This simple concept will protect the side of the net the ball is on, creating a tougher angle for the other team to sneak a ball through from either direction.
While you should hedge either direction to shrink the open net space as needed, be wary of a centering pass from opponent to opponent if there’s a player at midfield without the ball. In this case, be prepared to dash with L2 and X to close the distance, and prepare to dive if need be.
Additionally, don’t spam your dives. Leaving your feet and failing to actually grab the ball can leave you woefully out of position for a rebound attempt. You can block many shots just by moving into the ball. Dive if you need to, of course. Just don’t get antsy and dive for no reason.
Be Aggressive To Grab Loose Balls
While you should stay in the box for most of your shift as keeper, you don’t need to stay absolutely glued to the net. Many times in REMATCH, the opposition will get antsy to clear the ball from their own end of the pitch and will launch a clearance to your side of the field.
In these cases, you may very often get to the ball first in order to stop a counterattack in its tracks. You have unlimited stamina as goalkeeper, soyou don’t need to be stingy with your L1 sprinting.
Don’t forget about your rechargeable extra effort speed boost that you can deploy by double-tapping L1 if you’re desperate to close some extra distance.
As long as you’re within the box and holding the ball, the defense can’t take it away from you. Because of this, you’re good to be aggressive in these situations. Keep in mind, however, that if you leave the box with the ball, you’ll turn into a sweeper and can no longer hold the ball with your hands, making you vulnerable to being tackled.
Don’t Get Fooled By Rebound Shots
As you start to play more skilled players (or newbies that just can’t aim yet), you’ll need to be careful of rebound shots. For the uninitiated, these are when an opposing shooter intentionally launches a shot off the barrier around the goal to trick you into diving, with the aim to then recover the shot and easily score with you now out of position.
There’s nogreatway to prevent this, and learning when the other team is going for a rebound just takes practice and time with the game.
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Essentially, once you get the feel of the exact size of the net, you can tell if an approaching shot is actually on target or not. If it’s not coming towards the net,stay home and anticipate where a rebounded shot may be directed from.
There’s no out of bounds in REMATCH, so it’s a genuine offensive strategy to miss, then immediately shoot on the rebound to try to trick the keeper.Be smarter.
Clear The Ball Intelligently
We previously covered the controls for passing the ball to your teammates while you’re in possession of it, so now it’s time to learn how to do so wisely.
The worst thing you can do (besides conceding a goal) is make a save, then immediately give the ball back to the other team. It’s crucial, therefore, to know how to safely get the ball back to the good guys.
To be honest, I rarely find myself needing the R1+Square lob pass in these situations. One of two options will typically get the job done.
Once you get used to things a bit more, you may get tricky with your keeper passes by becoming a geometry wizard and ricocheting passes off the walls to safely reach your teammates. Your opponents typically don’t see this coming, and you can often place a ball perfectly to your friend as a result.
Create An Advantage As Sweeper When You’re Desperate
While I’ve already recommended you keep to the goal for about 95% of your time as goalie, there comes a moment where desperation will force you to do otherwise.
If you’re trailing late in a game andneedan equalizer in the last 30 or so seconds, it’s time totransform into a sweeper. This means leaving the box and joining your other teammates as offensive players, attacking to try to score before the clock strikes zero.
This is basically the same principle as pulling the goalie in ice hockey. Once your team has possession in one of these desperate, late-game moments, it’s time toleave the net and strike.
The worst-case scenario? The other team can launch another goal from essentially anywhere on the pitch since you left the net abandoned. If that happens, oh well. You were going to lose anyway.
The best case scenario? This extra offensive advantage leads to a goal for your team, and you even things up to push the game into overtime, looking like a hero all the while.
