Top 270 Goalkeeper Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

Petr Cech has been a top keeper in the Premier League for the last 10-12 years. When you're growing up, you see him making these saves week in, week out. He's probably been the most consistent goalkeeper in these last 10 years in the Premier League, so you can't give him too much criticism.

Buffon, for us, is the captain. He is the player with the most experience and we are lucky to have the man who I believe is the best goalkeeper of all time defending our goal. We always try to make sure that he has to make very few saves, but it is extremely reassuring having him in goal.

Liverpool's grand opera also gave us some light comedy - on hearing the news that the house of goalkeeper Pepe Reina was burgled, and his Porsche stolen, while he was heroically saving penalties at Anfield, fans took a typically witty line: police were said to be interviewing a man from the West London area, a certain Frank Lampard, whose whereabouts on Tuesday between 7.45pm and 10.15pm are unknown. Indeed.

The goalkeeper plays in a psychological position, and he's dealing with mental things. I wanted to describe the things I've done wrong and, most of all, what I've done right, so that other people, including those in other professions, could learn from my experiences.

Great genetics are not necessarily a precursor for success in the game. Brazilian Legend Pelé has often said that soccer stars are not born. Without proper soccer training a player will never reach his full potential. It is true that great speed would benefit someone who plays as a winger but would not be as useful for a goalkeeper. The greatest advantage of soccer is that it is not as discriminating as basketball or volleyball. There are no limitations when it comes to physique and it all comes down to individual soccer skills.

When I was 15, Juventus of Italy, wanted to hire me because one of their scouts, who had been a famous Italian goalkeeper for them, saw me and told them that there was a boy with a potential, that it would be good to take advantage while I was still unknown. Juventus proposed but my mum never wanted to hear anything from anyone.

Ten years ago I also had a very difficult decision to make when we had (Carlo) Cudicini giving fantastic performances in Chelsea’s goal for many years. I had in my hands a 22-year-old goalkeeper I thought could be in Chelsea’s goals for years and years and years and this situation is quite similar.

When we are thinking in an attacking moment, I want the goalkeeper thinking, for that, he is the first. The same when we are thinking defensively - I want our strikers to be thinking, 'We need to protect the goalkeepers.' I want those two moments to feel the same for all players.

Every player makes mistakes; every goalkeeper makes mistakes. Every manager does, every broadcaster - every person in life makes mistakes. But for goalkeepers, often when they make a mistake, it leads to a goal.

Joe Hart has come in for a bit of criticism, but it's only because he's the England goalkeeper, and he's not got any competition. It's always been like that; it's just the way the English media works. Joe Hart is a tough cookie, and he won't listen to any of that.

When I played in Holland, I always tried to lob the goalkeeper. People used to say, 'Oh, you're always only trying to make a nice goal'. But I said, 'Listen, if the goalie is a little bit off his line, how much space do you have on his left or right?' It's not a lot. 'And how much space do you have above him?'

Buffon may be a bit smaller, but he has everything that you want from a great goalkeeper. He relays his confidence to his defence, and they feel that they have a great keeper behind them. Everybody can make mistakes, but his consistency level is amazing. You never see him have a bad game.

This is ludicrous. Seven- and eight-year-olds valiantly trying to cover the same acreage as those grown-up chaps in the Premier League is absurd. To add to the lunacy, a little goalkeeper, barely out of nappies, has to stand between posts that are eight strides apart - adult strides - and under a crossbar more than twice his height.

Every goalkeeper has their own strong points and qualities. What I like to do is focus on every keeper. You can pick bits out of every keeper where they are particularly strong, and you can learn from things like that.

It's a goalkeeper's job. There's so many times you're doing nothing for 89, 90 minutes, and then there's a split-second moment. It's a different challenge to outfield players, who have a lot of physical challenges and battle. We have a lot of mental battles; it's about maintaining your focus, refining processes of what you do in a game.

Over the years I think I have developed a better understanding of being a goalkeeper - and I mean on and off the pitch. I mean how to deal with certain situations, how to prepare myself for games, how to read the game. I think I needed to leave Arsenal to do that.

I can tell you that the Galacticos era in the early 2000s wasn't just memorable for the fans. It was also incredible to be part of as a player. You would sit in the dressing room, look around you, and see the Ballon d'Or winner, the Spanish player of the year, the top scorer in La Liga, the best goalkeeper in the world.

Whether you play or whether you're on the bench, or however it may be, at some point in your career you will be one of those three roles. You will either be a young, up-and-coming goalkeeper watching the experienced one, you'll either be on the bench or you'll be in goal yourself.

At the beginning, it is all about fun. I had a lot of fun. But then, when I was 10 years old, more or less, I had a coach who said that I had a strange running style. I was about to leave... I had a decision to take: if I leave or if I stay, but as a goalkeeper.

I've seen elbows that broke eye sockets. I've seen a German goalkeeper just level a French guy. His teammates thought he was dead lying on the ground. This was in 1982 at my first World Cup. But a bite is outside any kind of contact collision: dirty foul play. A bite is a bite.

I have always said that a striker scores a goal but not every goal is scored by a striker. A goalkeeper can make a mistake which is a goal, but every goal still goes past him and you have to accept that.

Every goalkeeper has a different way of playing. Some will take risks to help the team - coming for high balls, being prepared to be attacked in the box knowing there is not much protection from the referees - but that might mean they make more mistakes. Some try to be safer to avoid those situations, but it does not help the team.

Every position is difficult, but you're always involved in the biggest chances of the opponent; when there's a goal, you're always involved. It's difficult to explain, but this is the importance of the goalkeeper: he's always concentrated, even if he's not running as much as other players. He always needs to be focused.

When I played in Holland, I always tried to lob the goalkeeper. People used to say, 'Oh, you're always only trying to make a nice goal'. But I said, 'Listen, if the goalie is a little bit off his line, how much space do you have on his left or right?' It's not a lot. 'And how much space do you have above him?

I played soccer all my life and I used to think growing up that they put the fat kid in goal or they put the kid that wasn't good with the ball at their feet in goal and I never wanted to do goalkeeper, I was always the goal scorer.

I'm not the sort of person who poses in their underwear. I hate the red carpet. I prefer the green grass. After the games the highlights show mostly the goals, scoring chances, assists. The spectator tends not to remember that as a goalkeeper I make difficult saves at great risk and start moves with my efforts.

When you're a kid you want to be a striker, you want to be scoring goals. I still want to be scoring goals! It's the easiest part of football, no it's not, it's the best part of football - the one you enjoy the most. But I always knew that my particular skill set was more suited to being a goalkeeper.

I turned goalkeeper. My father had been one and we had a goal in the back garden. He'd taught me a bit about it so I thought I'd give it a go. I didn't really know whether it was going to be a good choice or a bad one but I joined a small local team as a keeper and it turned out to be a really good decision.

Massive, massive mentality. The mental strength, you've just got to have that because you get a lot of stick, as a goalkeeper you're the last line of defence. When a goal goes in everyone looks at you, you've got to be able to deal with that. If you make a mistake, it could be a bad mistake, how are you going to recover? Are you going to react positively or are you just going to cave in?

The coach put me in goal, and back then, we were playing on bone-hard ground: red ash; we even trained on black ash, which was worse. That's not easy for a goalkeeper. My mother was always taking out her sewing kit for the countless holes in my training pants. For a long time, I had to buy my own gear.