Who is the greatest goalkeeper in history? (original) (raw)
Bayern München
Germany
Jul 18, 2023
The goal is where the game has evolved the most, and this is not new; it has evolved throughout history. Goalkeepers have become taller, faster and more agile. The history of the back-pass rule has had a profound impact on the game, on goalkeepers, on goalkeeper training and on goalkeepers' playing ability. However, there has already been a second revolution, which is also a tactical and technical revolution, in goalkeeper positioning, and some of these goalkeepers are part of this revolution. The goal has never been as well protected as it is now because goalkeepers receive the most modern training you can imagine. The basic training for goalkeepers is already absurd. You take the training of a goalkeeper and an astronaut who is going to NASA and you don't know which is the hardest. The goalkeeper is the first to arrive at training and the last to leave, and he stays there taking beatings and balls all day long. But without a doubt, when I talk about the evolution of the game, which is undeniable (you may not like the evolution of the game and think that the game has gotten worse, but as a complex sport, soccer has become more of everything: faster, stronger, more agile, more intelligent from the point of view of tactical solutions, more of everything. You may consider the product worse, that's fine, but the sport, like soccer, the others also evolve because you receive new techniques, new studies, completely different monitoring, another type of follow-up, nutrition, recovery, everything. So we have been moving forward), the goal is the place where this Impact becomes clear. If you take a video from the 1930s and a video from today, the impression you get is that in the 1930s you had a chair in the goal. Unlike what you have today, so goals from free kicks, goals from outside the box, etc. have decreased... You can criticize the players and that's fine, but there's merit to the goalkeepers who have improved too. These guys work miracles today. Goals that you saw 30 years ago happen would be hard to happen today. There might be one here or there when you make a mistake, but they wouldn't be standard, because goalkeepers today are working at a fast pace. Goalkeeper training, Cech once did a training session with a ping-pong ball, is scary stuff, he's an incredible goalkeeper. I think Van Der Sar is a better goalkeeper than him, he was even more revolutionary too. Van Der Sar had a very important long ball skill at a time when little was said about it. Rogério Ceni even says that Van Der Sar was his great inspiration in the game with his feet, and Van Der Sar is rarely mentioned. I think Peter Cech is the greatest goalkeeper in Chelsea's history, but I don't think he's the greatest goalkeeper in the history of the Premier League. For me, it's Schmeichel, who also won the game, with very modern movements for the time. And then when we talk about movements, Yashin comes in, whose lifts are a bit hazy. He's considered the goalkeeper who saved the most penalties in the history of football. At a time when goalkeepers had somewhat robotic and strange movements, Yashin seemed to be 20 years ahead of the game, making very different movements. That's why he was called the black spider. Not only because he wore an all-black uniform, but his movements were so flexible... he made saves that seemed like he was 30 years ahead of the game. So for a long time, Yashin was considered the greatest goalkeeper of all time because I think he created the first great revolution, showing that this position can be different. You don't need to have a cone there, you'll have a guy who will actually save balls that were destined to go in. And then you start raising the bar and the level that the forwards need to reach to score goals. So Yashin represents a very early revolution in goalkeeping. You had others in the 80s with very important guys, in the 70s, 80s, in the 90s I think Schmeichel occupied that place in a fantastic way. He and Van Der Sar. And then from the 2000s onwards you have an absolutely fantastic generation of goalkeepers and several of them are here.
Manuel Neuer: at 37 years old, he is still active and has 31 titles, so Neuer, of the goalkeepers of the modern era and of the top-tier goalkeepers, is the most successful by far. And he is the guy who has lasted the longest without failing. Neuer has never had a bad phase. When Neuer was bad, it was because he was injured, which is when he lost his place, he was unable to play the ball, but since he appeared at Schalke, even while still at Schalke, he was nominated for the UEFA ideal team and was later signed by Bayern Munich, soon after he was champion of the 2013 Champions League, and he was again in 2020, so he is a two-time Champions League champion, a world champion, being in the World Cup team and a candidate for the best in the world who, for many, should have been elected, but ahead of him was none other than Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano ended up winning and many people thought that Neuer should have been elected. I have my reservations about the goalkeeper being elected the best player in the world, but the fact is that Neuer was nominated and he broke an absurd bubble. Neuer has two fantastic, excellent Champions League finals. If I'm not mistaken, he was elected man of the match in the 2013 final and I think he should have been in the 2020 final too because he makes some absurd saves and also had a great World Cup final in 2014. Neuer's 2014 World Cup was wonderful. He is an exponent of technical and tactical play for a goalkeeper (I'll get to that in a moment). Neuer's physical issue, he has some injuries, but overall, at 37 years old he seems like he's 25 and Neuer's mentality, it's impressive how he doesn't get shaken. Neuer, of all here, is the one with the fewest flaws. If you search for: "Manuel Neuer's flaws", you will see very few. Casillas has some, Buffon has some, etc...
Casillas: 23 titles, he is also a huge winner, he won everything for Real Madrid and for the Spanish national team. He is a landmark, but I think there are some issues. The end of Casillas' career is problematic. When he was at Real Madrid, he was already under question, he even ended up on the bench, something that never happened with Neuer.
Buffon: 28 titles, he is also a huge winner, he had some moments and made a choice for PSG that no one understood, he didn't do so well there and everyone here will have asterisks. I think Neuer is the one with the fewest asterisks, but I'll get to that in a moment.
When I talk about modern football and the goal-scoring revolution, there is a term used today called "strategic goalkeeper" because it is the goalkeeper who starts to participate in the game from the very beginning, and that is where Neuer's revolutionary character comes in. Back in the 40s and 50s, you had a Hungarian goalkeeper from Honved who also made different moves, playing a little further forward, etc. In the 70s, Ajax also had this thing where the goalkeeper was the first to participate in the game, playing a little further forward, but this went to stratospheric proportions with Neuer because, for example, with Higuita, he participated in the game in an irresponsible way, but he participated. It was different. Chilavert scored goals from free kicks, but it was a risky business. Rogério is the goalkeeper with the most goals in the history of football and if you consider Rogério Ceni to be revolutionary because he scores goals from free kicks, he was not the first to score a goal from free kicks. There were other goalkeepers before him who scored goals from free kicks, including Chilavert, but that didn't make them more revolutionary than Rogério. Rogério didn't bring about a revolution. Rogério perfectly executed something that others were already doing. Neuer changed the pattern of the way goalkeepers position themselves, how they connect with the defense line, how they anticipate plays, how they read spaces and build play. I saw a website the other day that analyzed goalkeepers, and the guy said the following: "Neuer's passing is not good for a goalkeeper, Neuer's footwork is good, period." Because that's it, if Bayern plays with a line of four defenders, Neuer is a fifth. If Bayern plays with a line of five defenders, he is the sixth, who is the sweeper keeper, a goalkeeper who does everything there and it's incredible how Neuer dominates this role and has established this as a new standard. So much so that others who do this very well today, such as Ter Stegen, Alisson, Ederson, etc., all cite Neuer as a reference. You can find a guy back then who already did a bit of this, but with Neuer's excellence, with the breakthrough he made and the standard he set, there is a before and after Neuer. Therefore, Neuer is not only the best goalkeeper of his generation, but for me, if he is the best goalkeeper of this generation, with the victories he has, with everything he has established, he is, for me, the best that football has ever produced. He also ends up becoming one of the greatest and then you can consider that Yashin, Buffon, Dino Zoff, are on this shelf, that Banks (perhaps the owner of the most symbolic defense in the history of the World Cup until Dibu's defense in the World Cup final because I think Dibu makes a defense as difficult as that, as decisive as that, but in a World Cup final. Then you'll say: "great, one was Kolo Muani finishing, the other was Pelé". But one defense practically guaranteed the world title. In that game, England even lost to the Brazilian team later with Jairzinho's goal) is on this shelf.
Therefore, Neuer meets all the requirements: he has the best revolutionary positioning, the best construction, the best anticipation and reading, the best connection with the defense line, and the best defensive skills. The skills and movements: Neuer. Efficiency and decision-making: Neuer. Longevity: you'll have Buffon here, but again, Buffon had phases. Neuer is incredibly consistent and participates in the game. Therefore, Neuer is also the most revolutionary because of this, because the revolution he created is not just the revolution of "Oh, but he scores goals from free kicks, he plays well with his feet." It's not that, it's about participating in the game as the 11th player with the ball in the construction, in the long ball, in the short pass, in the long pass, and often functioning as a leftover. And don't confuse him with the Libero, because the Libero has the freedom to play, which is what Beckenbauer did. The goalkeeper is not the Libero, the goalkeeper is the leftover and he is the greatest of all leftovers and the guy who basically created this standard. Therefore the answer to this controversy from beginning to end has a name and surname: Manuel Neuer. 2.
For me:
1.Yashin
2.Buffon
3.Zoff
4.Casillas
5.Neuer
6.Schmeichel
7.Banks
8.Maier
9.Khan
10.Zamora 3.
Bayern München
Germany
Jul 18, 2023
No counterargument to the op? 4.
It's been a while since I looked at this so I might get some things wrong.
But iirc, Casillas edges Neuer in virtually every metric:
- has more clean sheets
- has more UCL
- better NT career (best GK in 3 major tournaments)
- better overall recognition at Goalkeeper of the Year https://iffhs.com/posts/2597Sure, Neuer was very innovative, but for me that's not enough to rate him higher.