Goalkeepers are like drummers. They’re both part of a team, they operate at the back of that team, are arguably the least recognised member and may both well have the least desirable role. This must beg the question, why on earth would you ever want to be a goalkeeper, or a drummer for that matter?
Even from kicking a ball around on the playground, the mindset was already there that nobody wanted to go in goal. I remember myself as a 12 year old, feverishly hoping I wasn’t picked on to suffer a lunchtime of balls being kicked at me, whilst everyone was dreading the same outcome. It was like a curse, like some punishment for not being quite as good at football as the others. This power of deduction led to the slowest/biggest/worst/most inept football player in the school being shoved in goal and yes, this was never fair but sadly it was the way things were.
How many of you can say your footballing heroes when you grew up were David Seaman, Peter Schmeichel or even Oliver Kahn? More than likely kids were running round pretending to be Ronaldo or David Beckham or somehow dreaming they were Michael Owen whilst playing for Brazil at the same time. It was always a much better option imagining you were scoring the winning goal for England in the World Cup Final instead of apathetically standing inbetween two jumpers twiddling your thumbs.
The undesirability factor runs right through to the professional game. For starters there is only one place in the team for you to stake your claim, with the other two keepers in the squad having to bench warm in what must be a very lonely place to be. Even though every player gets their fair share of stick for glaring misses, own goals and horrible mishits, goalkeeping errors seem to be highlighted that much more, going to the extent that there are DVDs in shops dedicated to their blunders. I would bet my bottom dollar that more people can remember David Seaman misjudging Ronaldinho’s freekick in the 2002 World Cup than Chris Baird’s own goal against Man City just last Saturday.
Not only are goalkeeping fumbles paraded around HMV, YouTube and Facebook but they come at a cost. Robert Green paid the ultimate price of ultimately sacrificing his England career with his howler against USA in the last World Cup (yes, I knew you’d remember that one as well), but many others have been dropped or even worse, sold on. Take David De Gea for example, hailed as the perfect successor to Edwin Van Der Sar at Man United, yet after a few months of unconvincing performances and the monkeys are already on his back taunting him about his uselessness, subsequently being replaced with Anders Lindegaard as first choice.
Not a pretty life for goalkeepers then it seems. You’re supposedly all wondering why they choose this as their career path? I’ve sometimes thought that myself sometimes but until you put yourself in their boots you will carry on wondering for a long time.
While everyone is dreaming of scoring the perfect goal, goalies imagine of stopping them. In effect they have nothing to lose. Take the scenario of a penalty for instance. A striker is expected to score, it’s almost a formality that he will. It’s almost mortifying for the striker to either miss or place it somewhere where the keeper could save it. However, if the keeper does save it, he becomes an instant hero. So from not even figuring in the equation of a penalty to suddenly saving it and being mobbed by his teammates, it must feel like a win win situation for the guy between the sticks.
Imagine if it was the last minute of the Champion’s League final, you denied the world’s best striker of surely the winning goal, you take the game to extra time and then save the crucial penalty to hand the trophy to his team. It really is the stuff that dreams are made of, but it COULD happen. Do that, and you would be cast in bronze right outside the stadium most probably.
Granted it’s harder for goalkeepers to get acknowledged in terms of awards, with Oliver Kahn’s Golden Ball achievement for being the best player at the 2002 World Cup the only notable accolade in recent times, as well as the fact that goalkeepers command the lowest transfer fees out of all the playing positions.
However it’s not all about that, there must be a huge thrill from constantly being the underdog, the chance to upstage some of the game’s more enviable stars. What I would do to get the opportunity to tip away one of Ronaldo’s scorching right footers that was certain for the top corner and see the smug look on his face drop to the ground...
Anyway, goalkeepers must always be used to having the odds stacked against them but I’ve always thought that the most frustrating thing for a striker is to constantly get denied a keeper who’s on top form. Like strikers who are measured by their amount of goals, goalies live for clean sheets. They pretend the net is their fortress with a huge placard above it reading “Thou Shalt Not Pass”, and for 90 minutes act as a guardian of the goal, shielding it from flying balls. They live for denying strikers, and will protect their goal by any means. Gordon Banks, probably England's finest ever keeper, sums it up perfectly: “Every goal is like a knife in the ribs”.
Goalkeepers seem to lead such charmed lives, going from being hated to being loved in a flash. One minute bottles could be hurled at them for conceding a penalty and then quick as a flash the crowd start chanting their name after saving the very penalty they gave away. It seems a very topsy turvy way to play the game but then again that’s the whole attraction of it. It’s so easy for them to be ridiculed but so easy for them to get praise at the same time, it’s like living on a seesaw.
So this brings me back to my original question that I posed right at the start. Why would goalkeepers ever want to be part of team but feel separate? Well, I’ll leave you with the ideal answer in the form of an inspirational quote from one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, Lev Yashin: “The joy of seeing Yuri Gagarin flying in space is only superseded by the joy of a good penalty save.”
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