Manuel Neuer: The Goalkeeper of all Eras
In the continuous cycle that is football, where tactics are a back-and-forth that returns to the point of origin; it legitimizes the present as the appropriate thing and rescues the past as a cause of what will come in the future, the goalkeeper escapes that thin line that fuses both chronologies to make room for a linear evolution. There is no position in football that has looked so far ahead without looking back.
There are two stages that mark the development of the position and its continuum throughout these years: the rule change in 1992, which prohibits goalkeepers from receiving the ball with their hands after a deliberate pass from a teammate, and the standardization of high pressures as a fundamental part of the game models after Pep Guardiola’s success at Barça. This methodical and sophisticated trend of creating ultra-dominant high blocks has forced goalkeepers to take a step forward.
Between these two points, something new emerges. And as if his name were a premonition of what was to come, Manuel Neuer made his debut in 2006 with Schalke 04 in a match against Alemannia Aachen. Just before the arrival of teams with suffocating pressure, where the goalkeeper was one-dimensional and appearing with the arrival of this in contemporary football, where he becomes a more global entity. And in the country where pressure and counter-pressure began to be registered as the hallmark of each team.
In the interval where these periods converge, a Neuer with a calm facade, a calm game and an intense character, begins to break down the barriers that separate the goalkeeper as a unique player, focused on protecting the goal and integrate him into the equation as number eleven. Manuel picks up the baton from his predecessors: security, strength, technique to stop highly complex shots and minimizing the expansion of his body to the maximum, which is basically the job of the goalkeeper. But, at the same time, it creates a new discourse for its future precursors.
The struggle of contrast between teams that look to go up and teams that design elaborate exits, would not be understood without the participation of an initiator, in which the goalkeeper must think, control, build and position the rest of the field players to give a clean exit. In this situation, Neuer has become an example and paradigm. No other goalkeeper on the current scene has managed to solve so many problems in such a varied way.
From his footwork to his magnificent shot, the German goalkeeper has alleviated the doubts of his central defenders when it comes to breaking a pressure. Seeming at times, the most creative footballer on his team. As if there were not an abyss in the error for being the first as well as the last man, he was never seen to have a hint of doubt when it came to incorporating daring. From dribbles, orientation in control or the invitation to be pressured, Manu antagonized what was once seen as wrong.
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It allowed them to overcome pressure, but also to create it. It is the variable of the change of possession: “when I don’t have it, I’ll have to press you.” Here also emerged another of the new functions of the goalkeepers. If before it was necessary to wait for the forward to be close to the area to come out, on a defensive level the teams began to pull their last lines up to the height of the dividing line, exposing their backs even more, leaving a large area of meters for the forwards to stand in a one-on-one.
Neuer was also not oblivious to this principle. He always allowed himself to go one step further, advancing his position on the field to clear, dirty and abort every long ball that his defensive line could not contain. His reading of the game, ability to measure the distance at which to position himself and proactivity to anticipate have given value to his initiatives.
From his attitude, uncomfortable, intense and grumpy when he concedes goals, even calm in pressing situations, was born possibly the goalkeeper who has best suited all the needs of football yesterday and today. Now leaving the international scene with Germany, having won a World Cup, an award for best goalkeeper of the tournament and after 124 international caps, it is necessary to give him the value he deserves.
Never before had a goalkeeper acted as a team builder and given so much meaning to the phrase “teams are built from the back forward”. Now from the goalkeeper, under the example of Manuel Neuer, they will seek to cement that some of them are the figure to develop a model. That is his legacy: to collect the best of the past without ceasing to embrace the present, guarding both eras as a timeless number 1.
By: Jaime Alvarado / @jaimej_0295
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Luciano Lima / Getty Images