{"id":28328,"date":"2026-08-31T23:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T22:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/halas-on-the-goalkeeping-union\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T23:24:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T22:24:39","slug":"halas-on-the-goalkeeping-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/halas-on-the-goalkeeping-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Halas on the goalkeeping union: \u201cMarco makes my job easy\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Petr Halas made 214 appearances for Meridian between 1996 and 2011 and has coached the club\u2019s goalkeepers for the last eight years. He is not given to hyperbole, which makes what he says about Marco Iversen worth hearing.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMarco makes my job easy,\u201d he says. \u201cI set the sessions up, and he sets the standard for everyone else. <strong>The young keepers learn more from watching him for a week than from me for a month.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n<h3 id=\"what-the-numbers-hide\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the numbers hide<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Iversen has had one save to make in each of the last two home games. Halas argues that is the point: \u201cThe best goalkeeping happens ten seconds before the shot that never comes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPeople remember the saves. I remember the corner he claimed at Westport at 2\u20132 with a minute left. Nobody talks about that one.\u201d<\/p><cite>Petr Halas, goalkeeping coach<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n<h3 id=\"the-next-generation\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The next generation<\/h3>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Kwame Osei, 19, is Iversen\u2019s understudy and played every minute of pre-season.<\/li><li>Two academy goalkeepers train with the first team on Fridays.<\/li><li>Halas runs a free goalkeeping school at Fairlow on Sunday mornings.<\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The goalkeeping coach and former Meridian keeper on the man between the posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[187,201],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-28328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-interview","tag-marco-iversen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=28328"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=28328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}