This is the latest installment of It is what it is, the sister column to Adam Hurrey’s Football Cliches Podcast, a parallel mission into the heart of the tiny things in football you never thought really mattered… until you were offered a closer look.
A goalkeeper winning a Ballon d’Or would mean only one thing: a mediocre year for European football
There was a moment, deep into the second half of Pension North End’s 11-4 battering of a visibly crestfallen Kevin FC in the Wednesday Night Vets’ League (Championship division) that I realised the unique psychological burden of being a goalkeeper: the only job in football — perhaps rivalled only by being a linesman —where it’s possible to be bored AndAt the same time, you may be nervous.
Yes, it was cathartic to bellow instructions at other human beings for 40 minutes, and a couple of reaction saves got the footballing blood pumping, but did I really contribute to staving off North End’s relegation to League 1? No.
The same dilemma — well, the reverse one — is evidently eating away at the seventh-best footballer in the world. Just six months after an almost impressively thin-skinned pot shot at football publication FourFourTwo (“There was a magazine, in March, that didn’t put me in the top 10… it’s strange”), Thibaut Courtois turned his attention to the voters for the most prestigious, historic individual football award.
“As a keeper you can’t do more, winning the league and the Champions LeagueThe way (Real Madrid) did,” said Courtois, who was voted the winner of the Yashin Trophy as the world’s best goalkeeper in 2022.
“Naturally, being in the top 10, it’s fantastic, but unfortunately when voting comes, keepers are being overlooked with strikers being favoured. It’s not such a big deal but keepers are being underestimated, although we’ve been participating in the game much more, sometimes almost as playmakers.”
Tempting as it was to pass this off as textbook, benign “goalkeepers’ union” talk, it raises once again the question of whether goalkeepers are underappreciated.
Courtois’ guarded observations bordered on arrogance — certainly in terms of the usual European footballer soundbites — which actually should be encouraged: the truly great players have always struggled to hide the fact they know they’re better than everyone else.
First, let’s address the easiest point: it just doesn’t matter.
For the world’s favourite team sport, football is not just obsessed with individual awards, it is littered with them. The Ballon d’Or, the predictably ham-fisted and mealy-mouthed “The Best FIFA Football Awards™”, the MLS Assistant Referee of the Year (congratulations to Corey Rockwell, you really did waggle that flag): you name it, football will come up with at least two competing awards to recognise it.
These awards, while they are understandable, feed off a natural fixation on identifying the best player in football. However, they also force you to consider the nine-to-12 months prior to that period, which is always the most difficult period of football to remember in detail.
Courtois is on the podium to accept his Yashin Trophy in 2022 (Photo by Aurelien Méunier/Getty Images).
Intangible terms, goalkeepers now have a better chance of matching their outfield counterparts.
The market rate of an elite-level No1 has skyrocketed. 2017-2018 Manchester City (Ederson), Liverpool (Alisson) and Chelsea (Kepa Arrizabalaga) spent £175million ($197m) on new keepers, which at that point constituted a quarter of the money EverydayInvested in goalkeepers Premier League history. The cost of a marquee sign has changed from a grudging expense to clubs to one that is as vanity-driven as it is about the best.
As the role of a goalkeeper has been intensified — first by the backpass law in 1992, then by a second wave of play-out-from-the-back philosophies — so too has the general appreciation of their importance. But that doesn’t make Courtois right.
It’s rare for a goalkeeper not to dominate a team.
The language of football is yet to embrace their role, either: use “goalkeeper” once in a paragraph, and then where can you go? “Keeper” is fine, “No 1” is somewhat undermined by modern squad-number vandalism, and then it all falls off a linguistic cliff. “Custodian” is clearly abysmal, despite its longevity, the use of “sticksman” and “netminder” almost warrant UN intervention, while efforts to incorporate goalkeepers with defenders under the hyperliteral term “stopper” continue, in vain.
Even if goalkeepers want the Ballon d’Or electorate to recognise them at the same level as 50-goal strikers, irresistible wingers, game-defining playmakers and the occasional titanic centre-back, there is a tide of data flowing against them. Lev Yashin, 1963’s goalkeeper, has been the only one to win this award. Since then, the top three have been beaten by only five other goalkeepers (Dino Zoff and Ivo Viktor, Oliver Kahn and Gianluigi Buuffon),
Fairly or not, the overwhelming sense is that consistent, technical goalkeeping excellence isn’t enough to grab the award-winning attention. Keepers must produce both indelibly memorable results MomentsOr be symbolic, totemic components of a tournament-winning group.
Of the 39 top-10 Ballon d’Or placings by goalkeepers since the award began in 1956, 15 of them had won the European Cup with their club, or helped their country to European Championship or World Cup triumph. Others like Gordon Banks (8th in 1970) or Jan Tomaszewski (13/13 in 1974) had single, remarkable performances that only propelled them into the also-ran category.
With all due respect to the mildly-aggrieved, 6ft 7in online-football-listicle enthusiast and his Champions League medal, one slice of the historical Ballon d’Or data makes the plainest case of all against Courtois’ argument: across the 65 editions of the award, the best goalkeeper in the world has finished, on average, around 10th in the vote. From a Sunday League team to a Premier League team, 10th-best sounds… about right.
Such are the prevailing limitations of a goalkeeper’s on-pitch influence, in a truly match-winning sense, any unlikely Ballon d’Or win in the near future could only mean one thing: a mediocre year for attacking football.
This week’s Football Cliches Podcast: The pinball threshold and MLS linos. Also, kick football jokes outta politics
The Athletic’sAdam Hurrey was joined in the Adjudication Panel with Charlie Eccleshare (and David Walker) for the 200th Episode of the pod.
On the agenda: the official end for football/politics crossover humour, former guest Doc Brown returns with a new twist on his big footballing bugbear, a deep dive into the MLS Assistant Referee of the Year award and some passionate co-commentary from the fabled “defenders’ union”.
Meanwhile, the panel examined the word “effort” for goalscoring attempts and decided the threshold for penalty-area “pinball”
The corridor of uncertainty
Each week, It is exactly what it isReaders can send questions about the peculiarities and anomalies of football (and other niches) to the editor. Here is this week’s selection…
Luke W — Would love to see an in-depth analysis of the levels of intensity in a match (from turgid/boring/dull all the way up to fierce/lively/scintillating, etc.) The next article will be about it!
What looked like a straightforward task here was complicated by Luke’s use of “scintillating” which, after some reflection, I believe should only be used for an individual performance, not a match itself.
Once that is done, the main descriptors of excitement for any football match can be categorized in a neat, even spread. DourThis is the natural low point, but a game can provide a way to get back up. Peter out In just a few seconds, you can go from 60 percent excitement to only 10%.
The triggers for the petering-out process can be any combination of several second-half substitutions in quick succession, a general sense of both teams settling for a point (or a dominant team conserving energy by passing the ball about at the back, in defiance of their fans’ chants of “We want six!”), a lengthy injury delay or just simply both teams being terrible.
Please note that absorbing (see also: “tactically intriguing”) is now more commonly used with sarcastic derision for a game yet to offer any superficial spark.
The excitement level at a football match
| Description | Excitement level |
|---|---|
|
Dour |
8% |
|
Petering out |
40% off to 10% |
|
Turgid |
13% |
|
Feeling end-of-season |
16% |
|
Will not live in the memory for long |
19% |
|
Absorbing |
29% |
|
As in a chess game |
31% |
|
A goal is required |
50% |
|
Compelling |
60% |
|
Lively |
64% |
|
Feisty |
69% |
|
Ill-tempered |
72% |
|
End-to-end |
73% |
|
Ding-dong war |
76% |
|
Frantic |
79% |
|
Thriller |
80% |
|
Pulsating |
82% |
|
Electric |
86% |
|
Barnstorming |
90% |
|
Riproaring |
94% |
Beyond the tipping points of a game You need a goal (an otherwise promising game that is yet to get the neutral’s juices flowing), you have the typically ill-disciplined trio of Living the dream (one flashpoint), feistyTwo to three flashpoints ill-tempered (four or more flashpoints and/or one melee), all of which contain the base ingredients for a “match that’s had everything”.
An again, the dominating force of football is: end-to-end encounter may well just be a natural by-product of the two teams’ styles, but a ding-dong battleThis is where the true, circumstantial thrust lies. ThrillersStart with a scoreline of at least 3-2 Pulsating games inherently imply two teams both “playing their part”, but not at the expense of technical quality.
At the very top end, it’s BarnstormingOder rip-roaring: Physical, all hands at the pump with at least one kitchen sink thrown at the opponents
Michael J — Adam, how many gears does a team have? Are the more successful teams equipped with more gears than those who are less skilled? How often does Manchester City need to shift into second gear?
This is how you transmit a typical football squad:
First gear: Exists purely for the purposes of saying a team cruising to victory “barely got out of first gear”
Second gearRefer to the above
Third gearRefer to the above
Another gear:A co-commentator is asked to help a team find something.
Top gear: Not necessarily mid-game, perhaps more used at the business end of a season, when they’re “hitting top gear just at the right time.”
James — How many different terms are there for two teams playing each other? For example, “Team A entertained Team B”, “Team C travelled to Team D”, “Team X faced off against Team Y”. Particularly like “entertained”, as it brings up images of Team A cooking Team B a three-course meal.
Naturally, Team A can also play Team B. Take onOder Face. The order of precedence for home team is: Play host to, We are grateful [Team B]To [Stadium X] and, finally, weirdly, Entertainment. For away teams, it’s: Visit, travel to(only for cup competitions) Take a trip to.
Colin Thomas — Liverpool vs Man City was largely hailed as “a great advert for the English game”. What is needed for this to occur? What teams are involved? Is it possible to do this in any competition? The Community Shield is a great advertisement for the English game.
I won’t accept even the most rip-roaring Community Shield as “a great advert for the English game”; it wouldn’t even qualify as “a great advert for the Community Shield.”
The most common footballing advert is the “advert for the Premier League”, based on the perceived collective modern ego of the English top flight. A great advertisement for the Premier League must meet these requirements:
- Either a well-balanced ding-dong battle between two of the so-called, self-styled “Big Six” OderA lesser-favorite Premier League team takes on one of the Champions League regulars at home
- Played largely “in the right spirit”, which consists of any of the following:
- 50-50 tackles. Minimal playacting
- Players assist their opponents to get off the floor
- Before Managers shake hands And after the game, at least one shot of opposing players in a final-whistle embrace that screams “two warriors, full of respect.”
- Just the right amount of chaos: between three and six goals, but easy on the red cards and own goals — the Premier League narrative must Not, repeat notDo not let incompetence or ill-discipline rule your life.
- Broadcast live on UK TV. A Saturday, 3pm kick-off cannot, no matter which online chicanery you use to witness them, be a “great advert for the Premier League”.
This week’s Football Cliches Podcast: Mesut Haaland Dicks with Geoff Shreeves
Adam and Charlie were joined by Sky Sports’ chief touchline reporter Geoff Shreeves for the latest edition of Mesut Haaland Dicks.
Among Geoff’s selections for his footballing fascinations and irritations are pundits’ pointless turns of phrase, microscopic modern shinpads, why Steve McClaren’s infamous umbrella has also led to an anti-sunglasses stigma in football and the matchday heroics of the broadcaster’s sound supervisors in capturing the noise of ball against woodwork.
Adam and Charlie also pick their favourite extracts from Shreeves’ new book, Cheers, Geoff! Tales from the Touchline.
It is exactly what it is is published every Friday — send in your questions and observations on the language of football (or any other curiosities you’ve spotted) by commenting below or tweeting Adam Here.
