Dave Hill World Cup
He may do the least running, but the man in the number one jersey has as critical a job as any of his (active) colleagues.
While South Africa’s troubles may have been solved by the inclusion of Hans Vonk, the debate about what makes a good goalkeeper rages on.
The English football fraternity, for instance, for a long time had a superiority complex about its goalkeepers. It precisely exemplified that nation’s attitude towards the rest of the world in general.
The goalkeepers were Englishness personified: they were solid, brave and reliable, and even when they were brilliant, it was brilliance of the most ostentatious kind.
The rest of the world’s goalkeepers were fragile, flashy and frequently ludicrous. You couldn’t take them seriously at all.
Unfortunately, such smugness had a degree of justification. In the 1966 World Cup, Gordon Banks did not concede his first goal until being beaten from the penalty spot by Portugal’s Eusebio in the semi-final, and by then England were already heading for victory. By general consent, he did not make a single error throughout the tournament: Banks of England was that safe.
What a telling contrast with the goalkeepers of that inferior entity, the remainder of the planet, the English would snort to themselves.
The extreme specialisation of their position means that even the most colourless and phlegmatic are, to some degree, personifications of footballing Otherness: eccentrics, outsiders, loners, one-offs.
Perhaps the most glamorous goalkeeper ever was Lev Yashin of the former USSR. The essence of his appeal was a combination of brilliance and enigma. Yashin was athletic, immensely honourable, brave and always took the field clad in black.
When he came to England in 1966, he was near the end of his career and at the peak of his mystique. In the film documentary of the competition, Goal!, there is a marvellous scene where Yashin is greeted on arrival at Goodison Park by a knot of devotees who shower him with kisses and flowers.
Yet his World Cup ended in disappointment on the same northern field. A brutal semi- final against West Germany was settled when Franz Beckenbauer curled a long shot just inside one of his posts.
The goal provided one of the tournament’s enduring minor mysteries. Was the mighty Yashin unsighted, and therefore helpless, or was he guilty of an error of judgment all the more sad for being wholly uncharacteristic? The great man provided no public explanation before boarding the plane back to Moscow – even in failure his magic endured.
At the opposite end of the scale, and set to grace France 98 in England’s group, is the deranged figure of Colombia’s Ren Higuita, who amazed a Wembley crowd in 1988 by executing his “scorpion kick” – letting a high ball float over his head before leaping and volleying it away, in mid-air, with his heels.
Here was the antithesis of good practice, yet it has transformed its exponent into a figure of world renown – clinching evidence that goalkeeping is an occupation of extremes.
Much of what they do is banal, but the moments when goalkeepers are drawn into serious action are frequently those of the greatest excitement and tension.
The onrushing striker, the testing cross, and the shot on target bring into focus the meaning of the term “last line of defence”.
In split seconds he must leap among jostling bodies, throw himself at feet, or propel himself with stretching fingers into the path of the hurtling ball. It is then that the outsider’s options are most starkly set out, when a goalkeeper becomes utterly exposed. For him it can be only death or glory, derisive mockery or splendid sacrifice.
He can only be victim or victor or, especially, sinner or saint. Like Satan, he betrays. Like Jesus, he saves. It’s a desperate job – and every outfield player thanks God that somebody else wants to do it.