The quarter-final match between Argentina and the Netherlands in the 2022 World Cup provided as much food for thought as excitement. Immediately after Lautaro Martínez scored the decisive spot-kick in the penalty shootout that led Argentina to victory, he was almost joined by the entire team in celebration. Team captain Lionel Messi and unused substitute Gerónimo Rulli were the only two teammates who went the opposite way to congratulate Emiliano Martínez, the Argentinean goalkeeper who had contributed to his team’s triumph by brilliantly saving the first two Dutch penalties.
Both Martínezes were men of the hour, but a simple count could tell that Emiliano’s two saves obviously played no smaller part than the one penalty converted by Lautaro. It was, however, Lautaro who took the spotlight, whereas Emiliano, if not an unsung hero, was at least underappreciated. Yet, this should not come as a surprise. As Duncan Ochieng, one of the most internationally capped Kenyan goalkeepers, describes bitterly from first-hand experience, “First to be blamed; last to be credited—that’s the life of a goalkeeper.”
The goalkeeper is a thankless position judged more by goals conceded than by those prevented. An outfield player who has squandered ten golden opportunities can redeem himself by scoring a winner, but a goalie who lets the only goal of the game slip through his hands cannot be forgiven despite having made ten wonderful saves earlier. Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer of the critically acclaimed book Football in Sun and Shadow, calls the goalie a “martyr” who “awaits his own execution by firing squad”. The number one jersey, which is traditionally worn by the first-choice goalkeeper, symbolises how he is disposable rather than indispensable. Galeano writes:
He wears the number one on his back. The first to be paid? No, the first to pay. It’s always the keeper’s fault. And if it isn’t, he still gets blamed.
The tragic fate of goalkeepers as penned by Galeano is one of those stories that get a remake from time to time, only with different actors on different sets. In the final match between Brazil and Uruguay at the 1950 World Cup, it was 29-year-old Brazilian goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa who played the main role. Brazil, who needed just a draw to become the champion on its home soil, expected nothing less than victory. It all went well until Uruguay staged a dramatic comeback and won the match 2-1 against all odds. Although there were eleven men in the team, Barbosa was unsurprisingly the only culprit to be ostracised and condemned to eternal disgrace.
Moacir Barbosa’s tale not only provides an insight into the unforgiving nature of goalkeeping, but also reveals a discouraging truth about life—people tend to point the finger at the one who stands out from the rest. And goalkeepers are the ones who stand out. They wear a different kit and play by different rules. Simon Armitage, the British poet laureate, captures the uniqueness of the position in his article “Why I Love Goalkeepers”. He writes, “Goalkeepers are, by definition, weirdos and odd ones out: they put their faces where others put their studs, and their chosen function in a sport defined by its flow and energy is one of apparent inaction followed by occasional moments of joy-killing intervention.”
Being the odd one out is a lonely existence. During practice sessions, goalkeepers train separately from their teammates. Most of the time during games they stay at the back as the rest race up and down the field. Interestingly, the apparent solitude of the profession seems conducive to literary creativity. Many men of letters played in goal at one time or another, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry de Montherlant, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Albert Camus. Before contracting tuberculosis, Camus was the goalie for the Racing Universitaire Algerios junior team. He never forgot the lessons learned on the pitch. “I learned that the ball never comes when you expect it to,” he writes in his essay “What I Owe to Football”. “That helped me a lot in life, especially in large cities where people don’t tend to be what they claim.”
Great goalkeeping deserves admiration because it takes much courage, physical prowess and cerebral thinking to don the gloves. Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita, relished playing as the goalkeeper while studying at Cambridge and proclaimed himself “crazy about goalkeeping”. On the glory of being the one between the sticks, the last word, then, goes to this famous writer—“Aloof, solitary, impassive, the crack goalie … is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender.”
