Glauser's game: “When I let my instinct speak, I make saves”

Goalkeeper is a special position. Always on your own between the posts, key decisions come down to you, no matter how hard your defence has worked in front of you during the opponents’ attack. While she has embraced the position, to her own admission “a little bit randomly”, Laura Glauser has in mind that her performance might also rely on her teammates’ collective performance. “And I do not find it frustrating at all. I know that my defenders will do everything to put me in the best position to save the ball. But sometimes, they can make mistakes – just as I can as well. That’s part of the game.”

There are, she says, other things that could get her angry on the court. At least, angrier than a piece of bad defending of one of the teammates in front of her. “What can really get me off is when I save the ball, but my teammates are not paying attention to what happens and the ball goes out of bounds, when I save the ball and someone does not dive to catch it.”

Not that Laura Glauser will go and shout on her teammates anyway. No, the FTC goalkeeper is not exactly the type to talk much at all with her teammates. “I do, but in the moments when the time is off, like when we wait for a seven-metre throw or a suspension. There are goalkeepers who speak to their defence all the time, but that’s not me. I would lose my focus.”

Through her years with Metz Handball, then Györi Audi ETO KC, CSM Bucuresti, and now FTC, Glauser has remained more or less the same goalkeeper. When asked her how to describe her as a player on the court, Glauser gives two words: “explosive” and “instinctive”. “I think instinct has always been something really present in my game. No matter how much video I do, I know that during the game I don’t think about it too much. Of course, studying your opponents gives you clues, but the worst games are when I think too much.”

And there is a fine balance between being instinctive and using your knowledge of the opponents. “It comes with experience, because especially as a goalkeeper, you have to know yourself very well to perform,” says Glauser, who seems at the peak of her career right now. “I always perform well when I am out of my head on the court. I am someone who thinks a lot about everything, and when I switch off my brain and let my instinct speak, that’s when I make saves.”

There is one night that Laura Glauser remembers as probably the best of her career – the semi-final at the Rio 2016 Olympics. In that game, Glauser was not among the starting seven, but head coach Olivier Krumbholz asked her to step on the court with about 15 minutes remaining. “It felt like an out-of-body experience. Olivier tells me to go on the court, all of sudden, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ But I guess he was right. I think I only took two goals out of seven shots and I felt like nothing could happen. I had this rage inside of me that made me feel unbeatable.”

Ask the 2016 silver medallist how she felt about that performance, and Glauser finds those words: “That’s the grail, when you transcend yourself and nothing can touch you. It happens once in a while, so you better enjoy it while you can.”

Of course, not every game is like that. So, with all her experience, how does Laura Glauser keep up with the fact that she might not have the momentum every night? And how does she keep it when it is there? “Obviously, it’s easier to remain at the top than to bounce back. I guess that when you are in a bad period, like you have taken five goals in a row in a game, it’s always good to go back to the basics. That’s what I do, anyway. Think about your positioning, about what you have to do on a wing shot, about how you place your feet, those kind of things.”

But no matter whether the last shot was scored or not, the most important one is always the next attempt to save the opposing shot. While some other goalkeepers see every shot as a new story, Laura Glauser thinks otherwise. “No, I know that as a goalkeeper, it’s impossible to take zero goals. But every goal you take is a lesson that you have to learn in order not to let the next shot in. I guess you can say I have learnt a couple of lessons in my handball life.”

While she might jokingly confess that some lessons have had to be learnt many times, Laura Glauser adds that her personality on the court is completely different from the one in her everyday life. “I guess I am someone with a lot of fragilities, who asks herself a lot of questions, but I hide that on the court. I would not say we are actors, but you can’t show your opponent that you are not as strong as you show. Handball is very much a mental game when you are a goalkeeper. And it is hard to show you are confident without playing a role.”

And talking about a role, Laura Glauser is not playing one when she says that she would rather “win a game by one or two goals than have to make the crucial save at the last second of a game.” But she has done a couple of crucial saves recently, including during the 2023 IHF World Championship, when France won gold following victories over Denmark and Norway in the final weekend. “Of course, when you save that last shot, it’s just fire in your head! But really, honestly, I would rather have the team win the game collectively than just to have myself in the spotlight.”

photos © Uros Hocevar & Jure Erzen & Axel Heimken / kolektiff images; Nikolett Nasz; Szilvia Micheller