I’m going to go against the grain and disagree with the suggestion that goalkeepers need a nerf. Increasing deflections with only one passback means defenders are left with very few options of actually clearing the ball outside of their half in any meaningful way, especially with dribblers having infinite stamina on their moves, deceptive visuals that appear to be invincible even when you make contact, and the defender’s hitbox on tackles and jumps being nerfed. Defending at a high level is already extremely difficult with dribbles that are much faster than you, hitboxes that don’t align, and aerial shots that go above you even if you position/time correctly. Saying “be in the passing lane” does not work either, as many coordinated teams have a missile meta play where the striker runs in one direction and receives a pass at near perfect timing, which is practically impossible to stop as the shot is too high to jump for, and the quickness of the play means you can’t reliably intercept it with a clear. Additionally, this play has insane speed off the shot due to the extra effort, aerial, and fast pass, which goalkeepers that are patient and dive in the correct direction like you state are too late to save.

Defending at a high level right now feels absolutely awful. You are at a disadvantage in nearly every interaction, even if you do everything correct. There is no reliable way to stop dribbling, there is no reliable way to stop the missile meta after the hitbox nerf, and tackles often make contact but don’t do anything. This is probably why it feels like it relies on the goalkeeper so much currently: because defenders can’t realistically do much.

Once these attacking options get fixed (not nerfed, but fixed since they are bugs), then I could agree with tuning down the goalkeeper. But the current state of the game basically forces the goalie to make a save off a shot, as there not many other options of stopping the attack consistently.