Tendency To Punch

Clearly Jens Lehman is not the second best keeper in the world at the minute, but somewhat surprisingly, he is up there amongst them. I generally show favouritism to 'keepers of the Lehman style. You want a angry angry nut job with a huge ego and an inability to grasp his own flaws in goal. Tendency to punch was all ways my favourite champ man attribute, and everyone loves the element of gloriousness that Oliver Kahn brought to any match. Tendency to punch: One Million.

But my point is this, no-one seems so have come along to replace these past greats. Ie. These guys:

Casillas is the best in the world, of that there can be no doubt, and I would shove Julio Cesar in 2nd place. Buffon and Frey are top notch also, but after that it thins out a little. This weeks Champions League ties should contain some of the best keepers around, but Lehman will be there, warming up for his 40th birthday celebrations no doubt, as will a 77 year old Van Der Saar for a team that has genuine hopes of winning the whole shebang. Aged keepers seem pretty common. Buffon, despite his skills, is getting on a bit.

The new behatted Peter Cech has become hilariously gaffe prone, no one seems certain about Victor Valdes' capabilities and we all know about Dida by now, even if he is super on form at the minute. But there is a group of nearly there guys at a lot of the continents slightly less prestigious teams. Hugo Lloris was in TOTT, yeah, he is that good kids. Then there is Manuel Neuer at Schalke and Micheal Rensing at Bayern who seem promising, but are yet to do something truly rad like there Mannschaft predecessors.

Whilst Sergio Romero looks exactly as an Argentine 'keeper should, and could well be the star of the world cup, at the moment he is plying his trade for AZ Alkmaar, the dutch upstarts not managed my Big Steve. Heading to the east of the continent there is future Ben Foster-keeper-out-of-first-eleven-er Igor Akinfeyev, muchos highly rated by many, and a Radetto top for the top Samir Handanovic at Udinese. One of those boyos will be at the world cup.

So yeah, there are a few gudduns out there, but I grew up with a smorgasboard of goalkeeping talent; 19 year old Casillas, Toldo, Buffon, Perruzzi, Kahn, Chilavert, Schmiechel, Van Der Saar, Seaman, Barthez, Taffarel, Roa...

Now I list them, christ that is a eccentric bunch.

So anyway, let us take a moment to reflect on the decline of exuberent goalkeeping. It seems like the African Cup of Nations is the last bastion of the 'Keeper madness. Maybee it is in the African air. Hope so, it would bring some intrigue to the world cup for sure.