“The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper” by Jonathan Wilson
This is an intriguing book that sees the game of football from the vantage point of the goalkeeper.
It shows everything there is about the position: about angles, positioning, distribution, the decision whether to cut a corner or stay at the line, about strong and quirky personalities, on defending a penalty kick (with an intriguing perspective from economics’ Game Theory), whether height is important or not, the fear of looking at the opposition winger dribbling pass the right back, the responsibility over everything that is going on inside the penalty box, shouting at the defenders to plug a hole, including the dreaded period of crisis of confidence a lot of goalkeepers tend to experience, even showing how incredibly deadly the role of goalkeeper used to be in the past.
The book began with the short history of footballing rules, which started out with no specific rule for goalkeeper, but later evolved into the “last-man-back” rule often applied in casual kickabout, and eventually evolved into the goalkeeper rule that we have today complete with the backpass law and the adaptation to be a sweeper-keeper.
It discusses the goalkeeping tactics in details, and shows how good Edwin Van Der Sar was, or why Victor Valdés was vital for Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona team, how Brazil’s defeat in the 1950 World Cup final (and the scapegoating of their goalkeeper Barbosa) led to the development of the back four concept, and many more, including cheeky facts such as how Peter Shilton improved his skills thanks to lessons from a dance teacher.
The book also discusses about how Peter Schemeichel’s style of play was influenced by his experience in playing handball, how Helmut Ducadam saved all of Barcelona’s 4 penalty kicks in the European Cup final 1986 and winning it for his club Steaua Bucharest, or the thinking behind Antonin Panenka’s insanely brave goal (for Czechoslovakia at the end of a shoot-out against West Germany in the European Championship final) that he practiced for 2 years after closely studying goalkeepers’ movements during penalty kick.
The main discussions generally evolve around the debate between 2 contrasting school of goalkeeping: between the conservative staying on the line, and the adventurous sweeper-keeper style. And in a some kind of plot twist, it later adds 1 more [almost forgotten] category: those highly entertaining Latin American goalkeepers – usually nicknamed “El Loco” – who genuinely think themselves as outfield players. We’re talking about the likes of Jorge Campos, Jose Luis Chilavert, and René Higuita whom all had a crazy story, the latter of whom involving kidnapping incident, jail time, and being caught in the middle between 2 feuding Colombian drug lords.
Ah yes, the insane personal stories, which are in abundance here. The book tells the tale of many legends such as Lev Yasin, Gordon Banks, Jim Leighton, Peter Shilton, Sam Hardy, Pat Jennings, Petar Borota, Bruce Grobbelaar, Brazillian legend Gilmar dos Santos Neves, Claudio Taffarel, as well as a lot of insane stories from historical characters such as England’s first sweeper-keeper Tommy Lawrence, the tragic story of Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson, the first black player to play in the English Football League Arthur Wharton, or that one match in 1949 that forever turned Brazilian goalkeeper Moacyr Barbosa into the nation’s pariah, and of course Gianluigi Buffon’s awesome stories that show his closeness with fans (one story in particular involved him saving the head of Parma’s ultras from a riot outside the stadium and ended up going clubbing together till the late hours).
It also has more stories from stars like Iker Casillas, Rogério Ceni, Ray Clemence, Oliver Kahn, Pat Jennings, Júlio César, David Seaman, David James, Thomas Nkono, Manuel Almunia, Joe Hart, Bodo Illgner, Brad Friedel, Tim Howard, including probably the best English goalkeeper who never won an international cap Sam Bartram, more great Italian goalkeepers such as Dino Zoff, Angelo Perruzzi, Walter Zenga, Gianluca Pagliuca, Francesco Toldo, Sebastiano Rossi, Carlo Cudicini, and more great Spanish goalkeeper such as Santiago Canizares, Pepe Reina, Andoni Zubizarreta, and Ricardo Zamora.
Indeed, this book is like the ultimate encyclopedia on goalkeepers, where the author, Jonathan Wilson, either interview them directly, or interview people around them, while also often referenced many more books about goalkeeping before this one.
And as always with any Wilson’s book (this is his 4th book that I’ve read), I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It gives more angles and contexts over the beautiful game of football, while serving a nostalgic feel about a lot of historical matches that are being analysed. All of which are written with a great narration that will make us sit at the edge of our seat like a proper good match.
THE CHAOS THEORY 