The goalkeeper position is one of the hardest and most important jobs on the soccer field. A position suited only for those who remain stoic in the face of heavy opposition and pressure. A demanding job that requires its personnel to have both intelligence and intuition, while simultaneously maintaining the memory of a goldfish. It is not a position that many can handle, and those who do must learn to understand every aspect of the game they hope to control. How do players learn this position and the mind games that come with it? How do goalies truly understand what is required of them when they put on the cleats and gloves and walk into the net? If they are a goalie on a WHS soccer team, they turn to goalie coach Bernie Cuddy.
Cuddy, 48, has been coaching goalies for over 20 years. For about the past 10, he has been a goalie coach and assistant coach to the Westfield boys and girls high school soccer teams. He has coached numerous goalies throughout his tenure, most recently coaching boys and girls seniors Michael Liebermann, Will Holland, Sutton Factor and Olivia Rosario. He has also coached Westfield standouts Ryan Friedberg and Lizzie Brucia. Brucia went on to play Division I soccer with the Georgia Bulldogs and the Maryland Terrapins, and Friedberg, a high-school All-American, is currently starting as a freshman at Cornell University.
Cuddy started playing soccer as a young kid. As he made his way up through high school, he decided that he wanted his athletic career to continue. Wanting to do whatever it took to continue playing the sport he loved, Cuddy took the next major step in his soccer career, moving to Ireland. Knowing the opportunity playing in the Emerald Isle presented him, Cuddy quickly packed his bags.
“[I] wanted to get into the professional game, so I went over to the Republic of Ireland where my family is originally from,” said Cuddy.
It was in Ireland that Cuddy found his sought-after opportunity. Cuddy found a spot on the Dundalk Football Club in the late 1990s, and his time playing soccer continued. Dundalk, which currently resides in the League of Ireland Premier Division, was Cuddy’s home for about half a decade. “When I was there they were really building, and it was an amazing experience, to bring a lot of the training back that I learned, that’s what I bring to the players I work with now,” said Cuddy.
After leaving Dundalk, Cuddy made his way back to the United States where he continued his professional career in the United Soccer League. He played in the USL A-league for the Central Jersey Riptide. It’s with the Riptide that Cuddy closed out his 10-year professional career. He then moved on to the next phase of his soccer career: coaching.
Cuddy started off small when he began to coach full-time. At first it was individual training and camps that took up most of his time. Using his experience from his playing career, Cuddy brought a new perspective to his students. From there he went on to coach at the Player Development Academy, and after a few seasons branched off to start his own business and work with the Westfield soccer teams.
Being old friends with girls and boys head coaches Eric Shaw and Alex Schmidt, Cuddy was called upon for his expertise in goal. It was here that he began his ten-year career with Westfield. “Bernie and I grew up together. Goalkeeping is such a specialized position and I’m not sure anyone on staff is truly qualified to train goalkeepers like he does,” said Schmidt.
Cuddy sees himself as a “player-friendly coach,” and his efforts are directed towards connecting with his trainees and not commanding them. As a player himself he believes it is his duty to teach his players to understand the game on a mental level as well as physical, that there is more than what is immediately in front of them.
“I try to bring the same type of training I was brought up with to [my players] and give them the confidence to go into these games knowing they can have their shutout or they’re going to be an important part of each win,” said Cuddy.
Working with Westfield goalies, Cuddy said, “It makes my job easy with how talented they all are.” Starting girls goalie Sutton Factor holds 31 saves on the year, while boys goalie Michael Liebermann has 47, according to nj.com. Their efforts have been more than to keep the ball out of the net, but also command the field. It is the goalie’s job to ensure that the defense’s formation holds tight, and only they can have the vision to be aware of everything that is happening. It is one of Cuddy’s greatest goals that a player understands this incredibly important role on the field. This year these lessons have been evident in his players.
This past season, Westfield’s defensive efforts have been nothing short of incredible. The boys and girls teams have 23 combined clean sheets and 88 combined saves. When opponents do score, it is in small quantity since only 8 goals have been scored on the two teams combined. Factor and Liebermann have been insurmountable obstacles to all opponents, embodying Cuddy’s lessons throughout the season.
“He pushes me to my limit and has helped me improve over the past eight years I have known him,” said Factor. “[During games] Bernie usually just focuses on me and [Olivia Rosario] and he tells us what to do and what we’ve done good and what we need to work on, he’s just focused on the goalkeepers.”
“He’s very demanding sometimes, puts [me] through some crazy drills, and he has the perfect mixture of constructive criticism and positive feedback. He’ll build you up and maintain your confidence, but also offer pointers to help down the road. Working with Bernie has definitely improved my skills,” said Liebermann.
During the season Cuddy likes to stay involved in more than just practices, attending every game he can to see his students in a goalkeeper’s natural environment: between the goalposts. He goes beyond the average soccer trainer and maintains the important relationship between player and coach that is so vital to a goalie’s success.
“Lizzie Brucia came back for [training] for her fifth year [of college], I hear from Ryan [Friedberg], just for them to come back, I like watching them take what I’ve done with them and using it themselves,” said Cuddy. “I love seeing that what I was doing sunk in and they can use that for themselves as well. [When] Sutton and Michael are teaching little kids [in school-sponsored clinics], I see them use the same [lessons] we do in training, to see they like to use, in their own coaching, what I’m doing [with them in training], I love seeing that”.
Goalkeeping is not the average job for the average person. It is not for the faint of heart or the unsteady hand. It requires a brick-wall mentality that coincides only with Newton’s ideas of an immovable object. It takes heart and skill to play the position; it takes even more to coach it. Cuddy is specialized in a position that few have mastered and uses his talents and expertise to help Westfield along their journey to seasonal success. He has been described by Schmidt as an “invaluable asset who has built a tradition of strong goalkeeping at WHS.” He is a coach who has been, and continues to be, a pillar in the Westfield soccer community.
