da leao： The 19-year-old has shone in the Women's Super League this season, named Player of the Match against Chelsea and saving a penalty against Arsenal

da realsbet： Manchester City have two senior international goalkeepers they can call upon, in England's Ellie Roebuck and Lioness-turned-Scotland star Sandy MacIver, two shot-stoppers with heaps of experience and two Olympians. But between them this season, they’ve managed just two appearances in all competitions for the club. Why? Because of 19-year-old Khiara Keating.

Chosen by head coach Gareth Taylor to start City’s opening game of the 2023-24 Women’s Super League, the teenager has yet to relinquish the privilege of being first-choice, keeping three clean sheets in her first four outings to be one of the stories of the season so far.

Keating’s performances have earned her plenty of plaudits, a Player of the Month nomination and, most notably of all, a first senior England call-up. It’s never easy to break through as a young goalkeeper – it’s a rarity, even, to see a teenage shot-stopper thrust into the starting role at any level – but the confidence and quality with which Keating has done so has been incredibly impressive.

What is it about this diminutive 19-year-old, then, that has rocketed her up City’s pecking order and into the picture for the Lionesses?

GettyWhere it all began

Growing up in Ardwick, an area near central Manchester, Keating’s introduction to football came in the cages near home, where she’d play with her brothers and sisters after school until it was dark. Her mum, Nicola, cited as a huge figure of inspiration by the teenager time and time again, set up a team in the community that Keating would play for, initially much further up the pitch as a striker.

Aged six, though, she trialled for Manchester United as a goalkeeper and hasn’t looked back. At 11 years old, Keating moved to the blue side of the city and continued her development in the academy of the club she represents today, with call-ups to England’s youth teams part of that path to the top.

It was around the same time that Keating’s mother was introducing her to more female role models in the game, something that had a huge impact on the young goalkeeper. “My mum pushed me to go not just to the Olympics [in London in 2012], but to watch more women's games as it was growing,” she said recently. “I think seeing it on such a big stage at an Olympics was just very inspiring. It made me think, ‘That's definitely something that I want to do in the future’.”

After making five matchday squads as a 16-year-old in the 2020-21 season, Keating’s senior debut came in January 2022 in the Continental Cup, and she kept a clean sheet in a 5-0 win over Leicester. The teenager has been on the fringes of the City team since, racking up eight appearances before the start of this current season.

AdvertisementGettyThe big break

This 2023-24 campaign has seen Keating really come to the fore, though. After starting City’s 2-0 win away at West Ham on the opening weekend – ahead of Roebuck and MacIver, both of whom are capped by England and the latter also now by Scotland – the game that thrust the teenager into the spotlight more than ever was a clash against Chelsea the following week, one that grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Eleven yellow cards, two of those resulting in reds, were handed out in a ridiculous game in which nine-player City were dealt a crushing blow by Chelsea’s 96th-minute equaliser. But despite them conceding late on, it was the hosts’ teenage goalkeeper who caught the eye in the biggest game of her career to date, so much so that she was named Player of the Match after some truly outstanding reflex saves kept the reigning champions at bay for so long.

“I think I'm always going to be grateful to Gareth for giving me the chance to show what I'm about,” Keating said in October, at her first senior England camp. “In the past, there's been times where I haven't been able to show that because there's better competition out there, but he said in pre-season that it's going to be a clean slate and the decision is going to be what's best for the team. I'm just grateful that he's given me the opportunity and now I'm here.”

GettyHow it's going

Responding to the disappointment of the Chelsea draw with back-to-back clean sheets against Bristol and Leicester, Keating’s plans for the international break that followed the latter fixture changed completely when she was called up by Sarina Wiegman for the first time. It was a shock to the teenager – and her mother.

“She was in denial. She was like, 'Khiara, you're lying! Stop lying!' I was like, 'Mum, I'm serious',” Keating said, revealing the details of the first call she made after she’d spoken to the Lionesses’ boss. “Then she hit the emotional stage where she started crying. She's never going to admit to anyone that she cried but she did! I think she was just extremely proud.”

The 19-year-old didn’t get on the pitch in the double-header against Belgium, but the experience in itself was huge. Given the relative lack of game time England’s goalkeepers are getting at club level at the moment, a debut might not be too far away either. She's in the squad again for the Lionesses' decisive December fixtures, anyway, fresh off the back of signing a new deal with Man City.

GettyBiggest strengths

There’s a lot to like about Keating as a goalkeeper. Having spent the last eight years at the club, she is very much a shot-stopper in the mould of the Man City style, as she is extremely competent with her feet. Indeed, she’s the only goalkeeper in the WSL this season to have created a chance for a team-mate. That says a lot about what she can do in possession.

On top of that, Keating’s reflexes are absolutely fantastic, with her having the third-highest save percentage in the league so far this season. Few things illustrate the quality of those stops better than the difference between her expected goals against (9.23) and the number she has actually conceded (5). No goalkeeper has a larger positive difference between those two statistics in the WSL this year.

Keating’s positioning is good, too, and the confidence with which she claims crosses is something that catches the eye in particular, especially given she is not the tallest goalkeeper around. Her athleticism and the way she can spring up in the air to deal with anything in her vicinity is striking.

“She's very, very good to work with,” City head coach Taylor said after her star performance against Chelsea in October. “She makes saves, she comes for crosses, she's got safe hands, she's good with her distribution – both short and long. She was top today and you know when you go down to nine players that the goalkeeper is going to be busy. She was quick off the line, slowed the game down when she needed to.

“She's young, so she's going to make some mistakes, some errors, and can get a bit excited at times, but she's great to work with and I thought her performance was brilliant today.”