So, while this here shanty is intended to be the storehouse for all of my non-Arsenal writing, that doesn't mean I'll shy away from soccer entirely on here. Given my long experience as a rec-league goalkeeper (I recently did the math in my head - I'm either at or very close to 1000 games at that level), I will likely share my insights on the position here from time to time.
I mean, especially since the next journalist or pundit that knows jackshit about the position will be the first one.
Anyway, I recently came across this link, which shows a GIF of every goal scored in the 1966 World Cup. Always always focuses on goals and goal-scorers, but people rarely talk about the poor dudes who are tasked with the thankless job of trying to keep them out.
So, I wondered two things:
1. Are goalkeepers in general as drastically-better at their job as I imagine them to be?
2. Specifically, what about the guys playing for the little minnow nations? Even Honduras' keeper had one or two excellent saves in the group stage of this past World Cup.
Sadly, this won't show me any of their saves, so maybe one or two of these guys let in a few clunkers but made 100 brilliant stops that I'm not seeing here. Still, I think this will give a general idea. Please note: I am seeing all of these for the first time, I only have the one camera angle, and I'm giving my off the cuff thoughts.
Group 1:
France 0-1 Mexico: Horrendous. Helen Keller-esque. There is no need to charge out of his net like that, and he gets beat at his near post with a fairly soft shot.
France 1-1 Mexico: No chance. The chuckleheads playing center-half both give the guy all day to shoot from the top of the penalty area and it goes in off the inside of the post.
France 1-0 Uruguay: No chance. This was a well-struck penalty kick.
France 1-1 Uruguay: No chance. There were several defensive errors in the lead-up to this in their own penalty area, and the scorer hit his shot perfectly across the face of goal.
France 1-2 Uruguay: Partial fault. It takes a weird deflection out to the left post, but the keeper still has time to come out. I'm not always a fan of coming off your line unless you're 100% certain you can reach the shooter's feet, but the speed wasn't an issue here. I'm assigning partial fault because, frankly, he shies away from the potential contact. You have to make yourself big there, which he failed to do.
England 1-0 Mexico: No chance. It's a long shot and I think he sees it all the way, but Charlton hit the shit out of it. Pace and placement = no keeper saves that.
England 2-0 Mexico: Horrendous. The keeper spills a tame shot, and Hunt is there to clean up the rebound. Down 1-0 with 15 minutes to go, that's a dagger against your team.
England 1-0 France: Absolutely at fault. I don't blame him for the shot that hits the post or the weird rebound to the back post, but how does he not come for the cross in the first place? Was he waiting for a written invitation from Charles de Gaulle?
England 2-0 France: Oh my god, this guy is terrible. A tame header goes directly into his hands, and he somehow contrives to let it spill off and into the net. They conceded 5 in the group stage - he was badly at fault for three and partially at fault for a fourth. There seriously was no one better in the entire country?
Group 2:
West Germany 1-0 Switzerland: Slight fault. The defense may as well have laid out a welcome mat for the entire German attack, but the keeper does dive the wrong way on the initial shot. Further, he had the recovery time of a three-toed sloth after mealtime when the first one went off the post.
West Germany 2-0 Switzerland: Moderate fault. Again, the defense is all over the place, but even on a 1-v-1 the keeper has to do better than this. He slips, is slow coming off his line, and takes an age to get down into his dive.
West Germany 3-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a largely similar goal to the second, but I have a lot more sympathy for the keeper here. Beckenbauer scythes through the center so quickly that there is little time to react, and the shot is perfectly across the face of goal.
West Germany 4-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a 1-v-1 for almost the entire length of the Swiss half, and there aren't many good options for a keeper there. Coming out - like he did here - just means he'll slot it into the corner as your legs are moving. If you stay put though, he has an eternity to make enough moves to get you to commit and then round you.
West Germany 5-0 Switzerland: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive on this penalty kick, but it's right in the bottom corner anyway. I suppose the real question here is: "How was this only 5-0?"
Argentina 1-0 Spain: No chance. Unmarked back-post tap-in.
Argentina 1-1 Spain: Iffy. The keeper loses out in a physical challenge to the striker, who simply muscles it in. Judging by the era, the keeper should have planted a knee in his gut on the way up. However, these days this is almost certainly whistled as a foul against the attacking player.
Argentina 2-1 Spain: No chance. The shooter has all day to let fly, and it's perfectly placed into the far corner.
Spain 0-1 Switzerland: No chance. The shooter was all alone at the back stick, and the keeper damn near gets down in time anyway.
Spain 1-1 Switzerland: Hard to say. The camera angle is in tight to show the physical battle that the striker has with his marker. The shot looks like a decent chipped effort that the keeper might have done better on, but perhaps I'd feel differently with a better view.
Spain 2-1 Switzerland: No chance. Powerful header into the top corner.
Argentina 1-0 Switzerland: No chance, this was an excellent finish into the far corner.
Argentina 2-0 Switzerland: Absolutely at fault. He comes well off his line for a high ball he's never going to get to, leaving the striker with an easy finish into the unguarded net.
West Germany 0-1 Spain: No chance. The keeper takes a few steps off his line, which I think was ill-advised. Either way, the finish was good enough where I don't believe it would have mattered.
West Germany 1-1 Spain: Absolutely no chance. The angle was tight but the keeper's positioning is OK and the shot was a real thunderbastard into the upper 90.
West Germany 2-1 Spain: No chance. The defense simply has to deal with this. Once they don't, the ensuing shot is from point-blank range and flies into the corner with pace.
Group 3:
Brazil 1-0 Bulgaria: Horrendous. Pele's only goal of the tournament never should have happened. Not only did the keeper let it squirm under his body, but his wall placement was utter shite in the first place.
Brazil 2-0 Bulgaria: Garrincha's goal was also on a direct free kick, but this time no wall or keeper was ever going to be able to do anything about it. What a beauty, directly into the top corner.
Portugal 1-0 Hungary: No chance. The marking was woeful on this corner, and Almeida couldn't miss from there.
Portugal 1-1 Hungary: Dreadful and comical at the same time. The keeper goes to pick up a loose ball with both hands, somehow can't manage it, and it slips out to the Hungarian player for an easy goal. You can see why most of us will dive onto the ball now, tuck it into our body, and establish control before getting up and distributing it out.
Portugal 2-1 Hungary: Gobsmacked. That is the only word that can describe this one. A simple cross comes in right into the keeper. It could easily be caught, but if you're going to punch you have to get it out further than the 5 or 6 centimeters this went. That is especially true when the opposing striker is about that far away, and can lash it in from there. If I conceded a goal like this in my Sunday league I would expect my captain to bench me.
Portugal 3-1 Hungary: Bloody hell, he may be worse than the French and Swiss guys. On a corner kick, he sort of wanders out into no-man's land, then displays a vertical leap that couldn't clear a shoebox when he attempts to save the header.
Hungary 1-0 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The GIF doesn't show the whole lead-up, but the keeper goes down super-early, perhaps expecting a shot much sooner. That allows the striker to simply slide it into the net in the other direction. I may be missing something from this angle, but I doubt it.
Hungary 1-1 Brazil: No chance. Dreadful defending from the Hungarians, leaving the shooter with all the space he could want to pick out a perfect shot.
Hungary 2-1 Brazil: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive, but it wouldn't have mattered. What a brilliant finish.
Hungary 3-1 Brazil: No chance. It's a perfect penalty kick.
Portugal 1-0 Bulgaria: No chance, but own-goals don't get much better than this. Imagine Judas van Persie's goal against Spain from this last World Cup, only if it were into his own net.
Portugal 2-0 Bulgaria: Dreadful. Sure, Eusebio had time and space in the area, but when it hits your hand like that, you almost always should keep it out. The only exception would be if the guy hits it at Mach 7, and that emphatically isn't the case here.
Portugal 3-0 Bulgaria: No chance. It looks like a developing 1-v-1 until the defender sneaks in at the last second. It looks like he tries to back-pass it to the keeper and woefully underhits it.
Portugal 1-0 Brazil: Worse than Helen Keller-esque. This may be the most preposterous of the lot. A simple cross from the side should be caught. Instead, the keeper shovels it out into the middle of his own penalty area, leaving Simoes with surely the easiest goal of his career.
Portugal 2-0 Brazil: Horrendous. There isn't much he could do about the header once it got to that point, but that cross has to be the keeper's to come get.
Portugal 2-1 Brazil: Probably no chance. It's hard to tell from the camera angle, but it is definitely through a forest of bodies and it looks to nestle right into the corner.
Portugal 3-1 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The keeper makes the right decision to not come for the corner kick, but once it bounces out to the left post, it looks like the shot goes right through him.
Hungary 0-1 Bulgaria: What in the entire fuck is this guy thinking? Sure, it's a 1-v-1 from well out, but he goes well outside the penalty area and then dives at his feet, hands out. What was your plan there, chief? Even if that worked, that's the most obvious red card of the tournament.
Hungary 1-1 Bulgaria: No chance. What an epic defensive failure this is, highlighted by an own-goal only slightly less ridiculous than in their previous match.
Hungary 2-1 Bulgaria: Hard to say. This practically turns into one of those "scene missing" cards right as the shot was struck, but it did look like a solid finish.
Hungary 3-1 Bulgaria: No chance. Well-struck header from in close.
Group 4:
Soviet Union 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable header.
Soviet Union 2-0 North Korea: Terrible. The keeper comes out like a crazy person, doesn't corral the ball, and the shooter is left with an empty net. I keep stressing it to people, but for me coming off your line is a weapon in the goalkeeping arsenal that should only be used in very specific situations. This isn't one of them.
Soviet Union 3-0 North Korea: No chance. The Korean defense lays out the red carpet for the striker, and with that time and space in the area there isn't much a keeper can do.
Italy 1-0 Chile: Hard to tell. Part of this seems to be missing, but it looks like the keeper comes out and doesn't get there at the back post.
Italy 2-0 Chile: Also hard to tell, but it looks like he gets beaten pretty badly at his near post. It's a fallacy to say that every near-post goal is laid at keeper's feet, but this didn't look like it was hit all that hard.
Chile 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Emphatically-struck penalty into the upper 90.
Chile 1-1 North Korea: Impossible to tell. This looks like film recovered from somewhere on the rings of Saturn.
Soviet Union 1-0 Italy: No chance. This was an unstoppable shot into the top of the net.
North Korea 1-0 Italy: Hard to tell. The camera angle is weird, but I'm not sure the keeper could have done much here.
Soviet Union 1-0 Chile: May be harsh, but partial fault. It takes a ludicrous deflection off of the defender, but the keeper is poor in getting set and then dives the wrong way. That is almost always a sign of panic. Had he stayed composed, there is a chance that his dive would have deflected that shot before it rose high enough to reach the top corner, where it finished.
Soviet Union 1-1 Chile: Definite fault. It pinballed around and that part of the aftermath is hard to pin on the goalie. But, it does look like the initial set piece should have been caught and held.
Soviet Union 2-1 Chile: No chance. This was a beautiful chip over the keeper on what was essentially a 1-v-1. I don't know if there was something tactically at play here, but it looks like high defensive lines got beaten a lot here in the group stage.
Quarterfinals:
Portugal 0-1 North Korea: No chance. This was beautifully struck into the top corner.
Portugal 0-2 North Korea: May be harsh, but definitely at fault. The keeper does well to recover from an ill-advised rush out of his net to palm away the cross, and he's kind of unlucky that it went right to an opposing player. That rush-out meant that he wasn't set, though. He probably should catch and hold otherwise.
Portugal 0-3 North Korea: Impossible to say. This was filmed at a "the cameraman dropped his camera" angle, so I have no idea what's going on here.
Portugal 1-3 North Korea: Hard to say, as this comes in right as the ball is struck. It's in close and goes into the far corner, so I'm not sure what the keeper could have done to prevent it.
Portugal 2-3 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable penalty kick.
Portugal 3-3 North Korea: Another shitty camera angle, but this looks unstoppable.
Portugal 4-3 North Korea: No chance. Another gorgeous penalty.
Portugal 5-3 North Korea: Definitely at fault. Timid keeping here, as the cross comes in only a few feet away from him. You have to come for this.
West Germany 1-0 Uruguay: Partial fault. It took a strange deflection on the way in, but there was still a little time to react. A World Cup quarterfinal calls for a better effort, surely.
West Germany 2-0 Uruguay: Hard to say, but it looks like the tail end of a 1-v-1 where the keeper had no choice to come out. From the looks of what I'm seeing here, Beckenbauer loved nothing better.
West Germany 3-0 Uruguay: No chance. How does he have so much time to shoot?
West Germany 4-0 Uruguay: Again hard to say, but it looks like yet more catastrophic defending from the Uruguyans.
Soviet Union 1-0 Hungary: Preposterously terrible. The shot is saved and it's under his body, but the guy gets up without the ball and the Soviet player sneaks in to ram it home. I literally cannot envision this goal happening today.
Soviet Union 2-0 Hungary: No chance. The striker slipped his marker and could guide his header wherever he wanted.
Soviet Union 2-1 Hungary: No chance. I don't agree with the keeper coming out here, but I don't think it would have made a difference. It was a fine finish from Ferenc Bene, who looked to have one hell of a tournament.
England 1-0 Argentina: I don't think there's a chance. Sure, the header is so close in to the keeper that your first thought is probably that he should have came for the cross. But, the way Hurst runs across diagonally, I'm not sure the keeper could have spotted that run.
Semifinals:
West Germany 1-0 Soviet Union: Iffy. Hard to say from the camera angle, but this looks like a shot that sneaks in at the near post which perhaps shouldn't have done.
West Germany 2-0 Soviet Union: Again hard to say from the camera angle, but this is a long range shot that looked saveable from what I can see. I'm not sure if the keeper expected the shot or what, but his reaction time looked a tad on the slow side.
West Germany 2-1 Soviet Union: Horrendous. Good lord. What is with keepers and fumbling easy catches at this tournament?
England 1-0 Portugal: No chance. Horribly unlucky for the keeper, who displays perfect timing and technique in coming out to dive at the shooter's feet. The fact that the rebound went all the way out to a guy perfectly placed for it is just the devil's own luck.
England 2-0 Portugal: No chance. Weird angle for this one, but it looks like a perfect shot across the face of goal.
England 2-1 Portugal:
Third-Place Match:
Portugal 1-0 Soviet Union: No chance. What a tournament for Eusebio, this one a perfect penalty kick.
Portugal 1-1 Soviet Union: No chance. From what I can tell here, this was a brilliant save on the first attempt, and an unlucky bounce out to a Soviet player.
Portugal 2-1 Soviet Union: No chance, and utterly dreadful center-half play in the lead-up. By my count, that was three headers that they could have won before the final shot came in.
Final:
England 0-1 West Germany: Partial fault. The defender should absolutely do better on the initial clearing header, but it looked like especially poor dive technique on the resulting shot.
England 1-1 West Germany: No chance. Brilliant header.
England 2-1 West Germany: No chance. There is an absolutely bizarre clearance from the defender, and it's hard for the keeper to handle appropriately when there is a defender on the line. Speaking of, literally the only time I want a defender on the line is on a corner kick, if I'm absolutely down and out, or if I've dashed out of the net for some reason. Otherwise, let me do my bloody job.
England 2-2 West Germany: No chance. Looked to pinball around, it missed everyone on the way in.
England 3-2 West Germany: No chance. This was THAT goal, the one with the crossbar and down. Nothing the keeper could do, the guy hit the hell out of it.
England 4-2 West Germany: No chance. It's a bit weird that he keeper didn't even try, but it was such a brilliant finish that I don't think he could have gotten it.
In conclusion:
For the most part, it looked like the guys playing for the best teams kept the errors to a minimum. It is virtually impossible to make a like-for-like comparison between now and then, but I'd say on the whole most of them didn't embarrass themselves.
However, the really bad ones? The French guy, the Swiss guy, the Bulgarian guy? None of them would come within 948 astronomical units of an international team nowadays. By that, I mean ANY national team short of, say, the Cook Islands or Montserrat. The example I'd use here is San Marino's guy, Aldo Simoncini. Sure, he lets in a bad one every now and then, but based on the volume and quality of the chances he faces, it's a wonder that they don't concede twice as many as they do. The guy who is literally on the worst team in Europe today would, by my estimation, be the 5th or 6th best keeper here at worst.
Again, you have to make allowances for the age, but on the whole Gigi Buffon would moonwalk into any of these teams, I'll put it that way.
I mean, especially since the next journalist or pundit that knows jackshit about the position will be the first one.
Anyway, I recently came across this link, which shows a GIF of every goal scored in the 1966 World Cup. Always always focuses on goals and goal-scorers, but people rarely talk about the poor dudes who are tasked with the thankless job of trying to keep them out.
So, I wondered two things:
1. Are goalkeepers in general as drastically-better at their job as I imagine them to be?
2. Specifically, what about the guys playing for the little minnow nations? Even Honduras' keeper had one or two excellent saves in the group stage of this past World Cup.
Sadly, this won't show me any of their saves, so maybe one or two of these guys let in a few clunkers but made 100 brilliant stops that I'm not seeing here. Still, I think this will give a general idea. Please note: I am seeing all of these for the first time, I only have the one camera angle, and I'm giving my off the cuff thoughts.
Group 1:
France 0-1 Mexico: Horrendous. Helen Keller-esque. There is no need to charge out of his net like that, and he gets beat at his near post with a fairly soft shot.
France 1-1 Mexico: No chance. The chuckleheads playing center-half both give the guy all day to shoot from the top of the penalty area and it goes in off the inside of the post.
France 1-0 Uruguay: No chance. This was a well-struck penalty kick.
France 1-1 Uruguay: No chance. There were several defensive errors in the lead-up to this in their own penalty area, and the scorer hit his shot perfectly across the face of goal.
France 1-2 Uruguay: Partial fault. It takes a weird deflection out to the left post, but the keeper still has time to come out. I'm not always a fan of coming off your line unless you're 100% certain you can reach the shooter's feet, but the speed wasn't an issue here. I'm assigning partial fault because, frankly, he shies away from the potential contact. You have to make yourself big there, which he failed to do.
England 1-0 Mexico: No chance. It's a long shot and I think he sees it all the way, but Charlton hit the shit out of it. Pace and placement = no keeper saves that.
England 2-0 Mexico: Horrendous. The keeper spills a tame shot, and Hunt is there to clean up the rebound. Down 1-0 with 15 minutes to go, that's a dagger against your team.
England 1-0 France: Absolutely at fault. I don't blame him for the shot that hits the post or the weird rebound to the back post, but how does he not come for the cross in the first place? Was he waiting for a written invitation from Charles de Gaulle?
England 2-0 France: Oh my god, this guy is terrible. A tame header goes directly into his hands, and he somehow contrives to let it spill off and into the net. They conceded 5 in the group stage - he was badly at fault for three and partially at fault for a fourth. There seriously was no one better in the entire country?
Group 2:
West Germany 1-0 Switzerland: Slight fault. The defense may as well have laid out a welcome mat for the entire German attack, but the keeper does dive the wrong way on the initial shot. Further, he had the recovery time of a three-toed sloth after mealtime when the first one went off the post.
West Germany 2-0 Switzerland: Moderate fault. Again, the defense is all over the place, but even on a 1-v-1 the keeper has to do better than this. He slips, is slow coming off his line, and takes an age to get down into his dive.
West Germany 3-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a largely similar goal to the second, but I have a lot more sympathy for the keeper here. Beckenbauer scythes through the center so quickly that there is little time to react, and the shot is perfectly across the face of goal.
West Germany 4-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a 1-v-1 for almost the entire length of the Swiss half, and there aren't many good options for a keeper there. Coming out - like he did here - just means he'll slot it into the corner as your legs are moving. If you stay put though, he has an eternity to make enough moves to get you to commit and then round you.
West Germany 5-0 Switzerland: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive on this penalty kick, but it's right in the bottom corner anyway. I suppose the real question here is: "How was this only 5-0?"
Argentina 1-0 Spain: No chance. Unmarked back-post tap-in.
Argentina 1-1 Spain: Iffy. The keeper loses out in a physical challenge to the striker, who simply muscles it in. Judging by the era, the keeper should have planted a knee in his gut on the way up. However, these days this is almost certainly whistled as a foul against the attacking player.
Argentina 2-1 Spain: No chance. The shooter has all day to let fly, and it's perfectly placed into the far corner.
Spain 0-1 Switzerland: No chance. The shooter was all alone at the back stick, and the keeper damn near gets down in time anyway.
Spain 1-1 Switzerland: Hard to say. The camera angle is in tight to show the physical battle that the striker has with his marker. The shot looks like a decent chipped effort that the keeper might have done better on, but perhaps I'd feel differently with a better view.
Spain 2-1 Switzerland: No chance. Powerful header into the top corner.
Argentina 1-0 Switzerland: No chance, this was an excellent finish into the far corner.
Argentina 2-0 Switzerland: Absolutely at fault. He comes well off his line for a high ball he's never going to get to, leaving the striker with an easy finish into the unguarded net.
West Germany 0-1 Spain: No chance. The keeper takes a few steps off his line, which I think was ill-advised. Either way, the finish was good enough where I don't believe it would have mattered.
West Germany 1-1 Spain: Absolutely no chance. The angle was tight but the keeper's positioning is OK and the shot was a real thunderbastard into the upper 90.
West Germany 2-1 Spain: No chance. The defense simply has to deal with this. Once they don't, the ensuing shot is from point-blank range and flies into the corner with pace.
Group 3:
Brazil 1-0 Bulgaria: Horrendous. Pele's only goal of the tournament never should have happened. Not only did the keeper let it squirm under his body, but his wall placement was utter shite in the first place.
Brazil 2-0 Bulgaria: Garrincha's goal was also on a direct free kick, but this time no wall or keeper was ever going to be able to do anything about it. What a beauty, directly into the top corner.
Portugal 1-0 Hungary: No chance. The marking was woeful on this corner, and Almeida couldn't miss from there.
Portugal 1-1 Hungary: Dreadful and comical at the same time. The keeper goes to pick up a loose ball with both hands, somehow can't manage it, and it slips out to the Hungarian player for an easy goal. You can see why most of us will dive onto the ball now, tuck it into our body, and establish control before getting up and distributing it out.
Portugal 2-1 Hungary: Gobsmacked. That is the only word that can describe this one. A simple cross comes in right into the keeper. It could easily be caught, but if you're going to punch you have to get it out further than the 5 or 6 centimeters this went. That is especially true when the opposing striker is about that far away, and can lash it in from there. If I conceded a goal like this in my Sunday league I would expect my captain to bench me.
Portugal 3-1 Hungary: Bloody hell, he may be worse than the French and Swiss guys. On a corner kick, he sort of wanders out into no-man's land, then displays a vertical leap that couldn't clear a shoebox when he attempts to save the header.
Hungary 1-0 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The GIF doesn't show the whole lead-up, but the keeper goes down super-early, perhaps expecting a shot much sooner. That allows the striker to simply slide it into the net in the other direction. I may be missing something from this angle, but I doubt it.
Hungary 1-1 Brazil: No chance. Dreadful defending from the Hungarians, leaving the shooter with all the space he could want to pick out a perfect shot.
Hungary 2-1 Brazil: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive, but it wouldn't have mattered. What a brilliant finish.
Hungary 3-1 Brazil: No chance. It's a perfect penalty kick.
Portugal 1-0 Bulgaria: No chance, but own-goals don't get much better than this. Imagine Judas van Persie's goal against Spain from this last World Cup, only if it were into his own net.
Portugal 2-0 Bulgaria: Dreadful. Sure, Eusebio had time and space in the area, but when it hits your hand like that, you almost always should keep it out. The only exception would be if the guy hits it at Mach 7, and that emphatically isn't the case here.
Portugal 3-0 Bulgaria: No chance. It looks like a developing 1-v-1 until the defender sneaks in at the last second. It looks like he tries to back-pass it to the keeper and woefully underhits it.
Portugal 1-0 Brazil: Worse than Helen Keller-esque. This may be the most preposterous of the lot. A simple cross from the side should be caught. Instead, the keeper shovels it out into the middle of his own penalty area, leaving Simoes with surely the easiest goal of his career.
Portugal 2-0 Brazil: Horrendous. There isn't much he could do about the header once it got to that point, but that cross has to be the keeper's to come get.
Portugal 2-1 Brazil: Probably no chance. It's hard to tell from the camera angle, but it is definitely through a forest of bodies and it looks to nestle right into the corner.
Portugal 3-1 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The keeper makes the right decision to not come for the corner kick, but once it bounces out to the left post, it looks like the shot goes right through him.
Hungary 0-1 Bulgaria: What in the entire fuck is this guy thinking? Sure, it's a 1-v-1 from well out, but he goes well outside the penalty area and then dives at his feet, hands out. What was your plan there, chief? Even if that worked, that's the most obvious red card of the tournament.
Hungary 1-1 Bulgaria: No chance. What an epic defensive failure this is, highlighted by an own-goal only slightly less ridiculous than in their previous match.
Hungary 2-1 Bulgaria: Hard to say. This practically turns into one of those "scene missing" cards right as the shot was struck, but it did look like a solid finish.
Hungary 3-1 Bulgaria: No chance. Well-struck header from in close.
Group 4:
Soviet Union 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable header.
Soviet Union 2-0 North Korea: Terrible. The keeper comes out like a crazy person, doesn't corral the ball, and the shooter is left with an empty net. I keep stressing it to people, but for me coming off your line is a weapon in the goalkeeping arsenal that should only be used in very specific situations. This isn't one of them.
Soviet Union 3-0 North Korea: No chance. The Korean defense lays out the red carpet for the striker, and with that time and space in the area there isn't much a keeper can do.
Italy 1-0 Chile: Hard to tell. Part of this seems to be missing, but it looks like the keeper comes out and doesn't get there at the back post.
Italy 2-0 Chile: Also hard to tell, but it looks like he gets beaten pretty badly at his near post. It's a fallacy to say that every near-post goal is laid at keeper's feet, but this didn't look like it was hit all that hard.
Chile 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Emphatically-struck penalty into the upper 90.
Chile 1-1 North Korea: Impossible to tell. This looks like film recovered from somewhere on the rings of Saturn.
Soviet Union 1-0 Italy: No chance. This was an unstoppable shot into the top of the net.
North Korea 1-0 Italy: Hard to tell. The camera angle is weird, but I'm not sure the keeper could have done much here.
Soviet Union 1-0 Chile: May be harsh, but partial fault. It takes a ludicrous deflection off of the defender, but the keeper is poor in getting set and then dives the wrong way. That is almost always a sign of panic. Had he stayed composed, there is a chance that his dive would have deflected that shot before it rose high enough to reach the top corner, where it finished.
Soviet Union 1-1 Chile: Definite fault. It pinballed around and that part of the aftermath is hard to pin on the goalie. But, it does look like the initial set piece should have been caught and held.
Soviet Union 2-1 Chile: No chance. This was a beautiful chip over the keeper on what was essentially a 1-v-1. I don't know if there was something tactically at play here, but it looks like high defensive lines got beaten a lot here in the group stage.
Quarterfinals:
Portugal 0-1 North Korea: No chance. This was beautifully struck into the top corner.
Portugal 0-2 North Korea: May be harsh, but definitely at fault. The keeper does well to recover from an ill-advised rush out of his net to palm away the cross, and he's kind of unlucky that it went right to an opposing player. That rush-out meant that he wasn't set, though. He probably should catch and hold otherwise.
Portugal 0-3 North Korea: Impossible to say. This was filmed at a "the cameraman dropped his camera" angle, so I have no idea what's going on here.
Portugal 1-3 North Korea: Hard to say, as this comes in right as the ball is struck. It's in close and goes into the far corner, so I'm not sure what the keeper could have done to prevent it.
Portugal 2-3 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable penalty kick.
Portugal 3-3 North Korea: Another shitty camera angle, but this looks unstoppable.
Portugal 4-3 North Korea: No chance. Another gorgeous penalty.
Portugal 5-3 North Korea: Definitely at fault. Timid keeping here, as the cross comes in only a few feet away from him. You have to come for this.
West Germany 1-0 Uruguay: Partial fault. It took a strange deflection on the way in, but there was still a little time to react. A World Cup quarterfinal calls for a better effort, surely.
West Germany 2-0 Uruguay: Hard to say, but it looks like the tail end of a 1-v-1 where the keeper had no choice to come out. From the looks of what I'm seeing here, Beckenbauer loved nothing better.
West Germany 3-0 Uruguay: No chance. How does he have so much time to shoot?
West Germany 4-0 Uruguay: Again hard to say, but it looks like yet more catastrophic defending from the Uruguyans.
Soviet Union 1-0 Hungary: Preposterously terrible. The shot is saved and it's under his body, but the guy gets up without the ball and the Soviet player sneaks in to ram it home. I literally cannot envision this goal happening today.
Soviet Union 2-0 Hungary: No chance. The striker slipped his marker and could guide his header wherever he wanted.
Soviet Union 2-1 Hungary: No chance. I don't agree with the keeper coming out here, but I don't think it would have made a difference. It was a fine finish from Ferenc Bene, who looked to have one hell of a tournament.
England 1-0 Argentina: I don't think there's a chance. Sure, the header is so close in to the keeper that your first thought is probably that he should have came for the cross. But, the way Hurst runs across diagonally, I'm not sure the keeper could have spotted that run.
Semifinals:
West Germany 1-0 Soviet Union: Iffy. Hard to say from the camera angle, but this looks like a shot that sneaks in at the near post which perhaps shouldn't have done.
West Germany 2-0 Soviet Union: Again hard to say from the camera angle, but this is a long range shot that looked saveable from what I can see. I'm not sure if the keeper expected the shot or what, but his reaction time looked a tad on the slow side.
West Germany 2-1 Soviet Union: Horrendous. Good lord. What is with keepers and fumbling easy catches at this tournament?
England 1-0 Portugal: No chance. Horribly unlucky for the keeper, who displays perfect timing and technique in coming out to dive at the shooter's feet. The fact that the rebound went all the way out to a guy perfectly placed for it is just the devil's own luck.
England 2-0 Portugal: No chance. Weird angle for this one, but it looks like a perfect shot across the face of goal.
England 2-1 Portugal:
Third-Place Match:
Portugal 1-0 Soviet Union: No chance. What a tournament for Eusebio, this one a perfect penalty kick.
Portugal 1-1 Soviet Union: No chance. From what I can tell here, this was a brilliant save on the first attempt, and an unlucky bounce out to a Soviet player.
Portugal 2-1 Soviet Union: No chance, and utterly dreadful center-half play in the lead-up. By my count, that was three headers that they could have won before the final shot came in.
Final:
England 0-1 West Germany: Partial fault. The defender should absolutely do better on the initial clearing header, but it looked like especially poor dive technique on the resulting shot.
England 1-1 West Germany: No chance. Brilliant header.
England 2-1 West Germany: No chance. There is an absolutely bizarre clearance from the defender, and it's hard for the keeper to handle appropriately when there is a defender on the line. Speaking of, literally the only time I want a defender on the line is on a corner kick, if I'm absolutely down and out, or if I've dashed out of the net for some reason. Otherwise, let me do my bloody job.
England 2-2 West Germany: No chance. Looked to pinball around, it missed everyone on the way in.
England 3-2 West Germany: No chance. This was THAT goal, the one with the crossbar and down. Nothing the keeper could do, the guy hit the hell out of it.
England 4-2 West Germany: No chance. It's a bit weird that he keeper didn't even try, but it was such a brilliant finish that I don't think he could have gotten it.
In conclusion:
For the most part, it looked like the guys playing for the best teams kept the errors to a minimum. It is virtually impossible to make a like-for-like comparison between now and then, but I'd say on the whole most of them didn't embarrass themselves.
However, the really bad ones? The French guy, the Swiss guy, the Bulgarian guy? None of them would come within 948 astronomical units of an international team nowadays. By that, I mean ANY national team short of, say, the Cook Islands or Montserrat. The example I'd use here is San Marino's guy, Aldo Simoncini. Sure, he lets in a bad one every now and then, but based on the volume and quality of the chances he faces, it's a wonder that they don't concede twice as many as they do. The guy who is literally on the worst team in Europe today would, by my estimation, be the 5th or 6th best keeper here at worst.
Again, you have to make allowances for the age, but on the whole Gigi Buffon would moonwalk into any of these teams, I'll put it that way.
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