Between the Post

Every club needs a great goalkeeper to safeguard their last line of defence. But two? It's insane to have two great goalkeepers in the same club. That is the situation at clubs nowadays, ironically. There is no way a manager can make his players happy all the time by putting some of them on the bench. Let alone great goalkeeper. Normally, goalkeeper will only be substituted if he is injured. Even if his performance is really bad during a match, manager seldom substitutes his goalkeeper. So to have a great goalkeeper sitting on the bench watching his teammate, another great goalkeeper, performing on the pitch is a mental torture. Unlike international football, where the national team manager will choose three of the nation’s goalkeepers for a match but still only use one or two of them. That is different because international match is a one-off. The gap between matches is long, often 1 or 2 months before international players will meet again for another match.

But at club level, it is a week in week out sort of game schedule. Goalkeepers are like other outfield players. They need match experience to improve. They cannot hope to just improve their ability by performing in training. Training and playing in a match is a very different thing. Although a goalkeeper is the most relaxed spectator on the pitch, he needs to a have a high focus and concentration because one lapse of these two can drag the goalkeeper into trouble. To have high focus and concentration level, a goalkeeper needs match experience. The intensity of the game. That really makes a goalkeeper improves actually.

So, back to the fact that most clubs now have two great goalkeepers. In the past, clubs will have one main goalkeeper and two backup goalkeepers. The backup goalkeepers comprising of one who has lesser ability than the main goalkeeper and another one usually from the reserve team or the club’s youth team. That is almost perfect balance because clubs cannot have goalkeepers of the same quality. Because at the end of the day, either one will question the manager’s decision not playing him for a particular match as both feel they should be the main one. Currently, Chelsea will have this problem to face as they have two world class goalkeepers in the likes of young Thibaut Courtois and the veteran Petr Cech. Even Mark Schwarzer, their third goalkeeper is a great goalkeeper. It will be very interesting to see how Jose Mourinho will accommodate all his goalkeepers’ demand to play. But surely it is a good situation to have rather than not having any great goalkeepers to win crucial points or saving decisive penalty when clubs really need one. The likes of Real Madrid, Arsenal, and Barcelona will face the same problem as Mourinho this upcoming season.