SPECTATOR SPORT
Worldwide net
Simon Barnes
THE BALL went clean through the defen- sIve Wall. That is not supposed to happen. it does, it makes the shot impossible to save. But the goalkeeper dropped like a stone, stopped the ball and held it as the incoming striker raised his foot for the rebound. The full back, arriving half a stride later, helped the goalkeeper to his feet. 'Good as a goal, that,' he said. It was the highest praise he could imagine. But the goalkeeper thought, 'Good as a goal? Nonsense. It was much better. They have done their damnedest and failed. The match is as good as won.' And so it proved. I know, I was that goalie. Memories flood back as the World Cup starts. Francis Hodgson, in a book called Only the Goalkeeper to Beat, says that the goalkeeper is invariably the finest athlete, the sharpest footballing brain in the team. But nobody acknowledges this truth. Nobody begins to understand the goalkeep- er's role. Hodgson, incidentally, is a goal- keeper. Methinks the goalie doth protest too much. But this is a splendid book and all football people should be forced to read it.
will the coming weeks, television will bring us goals, goals and more goals. Every time a team or a player gets a mention, we will cut to the goal. They might, they just might, run a montage of saves — always the wrong ones. The tip-over from the long-range shot looks spectacular, but with most of these efforts the keeper has it covered all the way. It is no more than required excellence. What wins matches is less obvious. But there is no sweeter feeling in football than to be a goal- keeper, to see the striker hesitate, stare about wildly, and to know that you have him beaten before he has even tried his shot.
Hodgson makes the crucial point when it comes to the penalty shoot-out. This crazy way of settling a protracted dispute is foot- ball's great moment of role reversal, for everybody's heart goes out to the player who takes the penalty and misses. These architects of disaster have become national love objects: poor Stuart Pearce, poor Chris Waddle, poor Gareth Southgate. The penalty-takers know that a single mis- take will end in disaster, which is exactly what a goalkeeper's life is like every second of every match he plays. Only in the penalty shoot-out is he free to be a hero. It is never his fault when a penalty is scored, but if he makes a save he is the greatest man on earth. Only then can the goalie taste the carefree, irresponsible joys of the outfielder.
The goalkeeper is a self-willed outsider, of the team yet not of it, electing to join something so that he can wear completely different clothes and exercise completely different skills.
The World Cup is set to be a feast of great goalkeeping. I remember a remark in an art gallery: 'That is a great painting, if you but knew it.' I shall watch a great goal- keeping performance in a 0-0 draw and say: `That was a great match, if you but knew it.'
Enough. As a fellow, if lapsed, member of the Goalkeeping Union, I must supply Hodgson with a cover-line for the paper- back: 'This is the only book that has ever told the essential truth about football.' I hope he will forgive me for nicking his pay- off line. He quotes the television commen- tator's traditional call: 'Only the goalkeeper to beat!' And adds, 'Just ask yourself: only?
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