MY LIFE, PART 28: I’m not Superman, but…

I’m not going to lie, I had conceded several stupid and unnecessary goals and I felt ashamed about it for a long time afterwards. And it wasn’t easy to get over my teammates’ reproachful remarks when they tried blaming the failure on me. Saying “the goalie should have saved that” is the easiest alibi you can give.

You have to learn to live with that, self-pity is not the right way forward. If you let it eat you from the inside, you’ll eventually fail – but I wanted to be a goalkeeper and I wanted to be the best.

Whenever I conceded a goal during training, next time a ball was going my way I needed to prove it had just been a mishap. I threw myself after shots I knew I wasn’t going to be able to save. I just wanted to close the goal!

It took me some time to understand that not even Superman could save everything. But there’s one thing that still bugs me: conceded goals. I’ve always hated them and always will. Very much. As a boy I would go to sleep thinking: “What should I do so that I make every save, catch the ball at all times?” I would be lying in bed, staring into the ceiling, probably trying to find the answer there. But I’ve never found it, because perfection doesn’t exist. Buffon isn’t perfect, nor is Neuer or Casillas, or Kahn, Jašin, Plánička, Banks... None of them were perfect either.

Goalkeepers lead a special kind of life. It’s like doing an individual sport embedded in a team sport. Imagine tennis players in a Wimbledon final. Rafael Nadal versus Roger Federer. Their roles are similar to the roles of goalkeepers in a football match. When a tennis player messes up, there’s no one to save him.

And when he keeps messing up, he loses the match, he’s knocked out of the tournament, the end.

It’s the same for goalkeepers. If you mess up, it’s over for you and for the ten other guys on your team, which means the goalkeeper’s responsibility is even bigger. When a goalkeeper messes up, his teammates only very seldom manage to avert a catastrophe.

I believe a goalkeeper’s responsibility is just as big as any athlete’s who competes in an individual sport – and I like that. I’m in the game, I’m the last resort, I’m the one who matters, and I accept that.

And when you add the team joy and experiencing victory together, it’s just perfect. You share the joy and you feel like you’re not alone on the pitch anymore.

You see? That’s what’s genius about football.

P.S. Next week - Chapter 29