Feature: Why Goalkeepers Often Being Underrated?

The debate about goalkeeper or defenders being underrated has been going on for many years, but let’s put the defenders aside for today, and focus on the goalkeepers.

There are two schools of thought on how can a team be successful, one emphasizes the importance in attacking, that a team needs to be good in scoring goals to win trophies, which, was challenged by Paraguay in COPA 2011. The other one emphasizes on defense, it suggests a team cannot success without good defending system. Although most people enjoys watching the more entertaining attacking football, one cannot deny that in contemporary football world, the latter fits the situation better. Manchester United wouldn’t have won the title last season without Edwin van der Sar; and Spain wouldn’t have won the World Cup without Casillas. Every team that won titles, has a keeper who is steady and made very little mistakes. Even for a team like Barcelona, which rely more on scoring goals and enjoys playing attacking football, they wouldn’t have reached the top without Victor Valdes, though many people tend to overlook this fact.

You may ask, if goalkeepers are so important, why are they often being underrated? The answer is simple, keepers are hardly being forgiven. A very obvious example, how many of you still remember Messi did not score a goal in last year’s World Cup? And how many of you already forgotten Green’s mistake in the same World Cup? So you see my point here, no one will really blame forwards for losing a game, because people can always say ‘If the keeper had stopped the ball, we wouldn’t have lost.’ but I can argue with this, ‘If the forwards had scored more goals, we would have won the game.’ Both statements are correct, but people seem to side with the first more, as keepers’ mistake are more direct and fatal to the outcome of the game.

Of course it is unfair to blame either side for a defeat, but over the year, goalkeepers got most of the blames. A striker can easily get away when they’re underperformed, made mistakes and failed to score, although the team lost a game, they will still be easily forgiven. However, the goalkeepers aren’t that lucky. Like other players, keepers made mistakes too, when they’re under pressure, when they’re not fit, they failed to save the ball, sometimes they made silly errors, and their mistakes will be remembered for a long time, a really long time, despite the outcome of the game. I am sure you have heard a lot of criticism about De Gea lately, and yes, some mistakes can be avoided, but somehow I found some comments a bit too harsh. He is 20 years old and taking over van der Sar’s number 1, his pressure is unimaginable. Moreover, his mistakes aren’t fatal, in both games, Man Utd managed to win, despite the errors he had made. People give excuses to strikers when they cannot score, for example, not enough supply, just recovered from injuries and so on. How about the goalkeepers? There are 10 men in front of him who could have stop the ball before it came to him, and yet keepers took the blames.

It is also sad that when keepers did well, their rewards were still less than anyone else. How many goalkeepers had won the Best Footballer of the Year award by FIFA? And how many times did you see the headline wrote ‘Casillas Made 20 Saves Last Night’? Instead, you will see these ‘Ronaldo Hat-trick Last Night’, or ‘Luis Suarez Shines in His Debut for Liverpool’, or ‘Aguero Saved Argentina’. I am not trying to deny the hard work of strikers but many times, keepers’ hard work were being denied. If their mistakes can change a game, and they should take the blame for losing a match, then they should be praise for winning a match too, and their names should be mentioned, and memorized. Still think I am siding the goalkeepers? Try to count 10 best forwards of all time in 1 minutes, I am sure you will say, ‘Hey, I have more than 10 in my head.’ Now, try to count 10 best goalkeepers of all time in 1 minutes, is it harder than counting forwards? It is not that there’re less good goalkeepers you know, just that they’re easily being forgotten.