When the Level Rises, Goalkeepers Make the Difference
In a brand of football that changes with every action, it’s the goalkeepers who still determine fate: from Maignan’s derby heroics to Donnarumma’s game-saving stops, everything passes through them.
Man City–Newcastle was a match played at frantic pace and full of chances: Guardiola’s team struggled enormously against the Magpies’ intensity, but they were kept afloat until the 63rd minute by a monumental Donnarumma. A sort of cheat code for City, a guarantee of extra lives that allows them one more attack—something only two, maybe three teams in the world can rely on. One of the very few capable of shifting the course of events through the sheer power of his saves. And the question keeps coming back: “Did Paris really get rid of someone like him?” Because in a game that runs faster and faster, where positions, systems, and attacking patterns change constantly, there is one single unchanging constant: the goalkeeper. The last “role” that can still be defined as such within the fluidity of modern football, where teams think and act collectively, and yet—within the uniqueness of his duties—the goalkeeper remains alone with his responsibilities, reminded of them by the gloves on his hands.
More and more often, it is in this inescapable solitude of the Number Ones that the fate of matches is decided, especially when the level of the opponents rises along with the stakes. The last Milan derby is the most recent example of how two goalkeepers can influence the outcome of the same match—though in opposite ways: on one side Sommer, imperfect in the only moment he is called upon (as is happening more and more often), laying out a rather tame ball for Pulisic’s tap-in. On the other side, the hero of the night, Maignan, who with six saves and a decisive penalty stop (as in Milan–Roma), neutralizes 2.03 xG and allows Milan to come out on top against an Inter side that had created far more.
Just as Svilar is one of the main reasons Roma sit at the top of the table, Di Gregorio reflects a Juventus lacking confidence, deprived of the certainties that had defined them between the posts for nearly a quarter of a century. Put simply, at the highest levels the difference lies here: in the goalkeeper’s ability—or inability—to make the difference.