All of us will have to deal with declining ability as we age. Some of us are dealing with it now, in fact, but really, as long as you're over the age of 20, odds are there are some things you can no longer do. (Thankfully, there are also others you do better.)
For professional athletes, it's a bit different. The ones who make it to the top level have notions of confidence and self-belief drilled into them from a young age. Heck, anyone who has played sports at any level probably recalls some Little League coach shouting, "You can do it! You can do it!" It's stuff that athletes (and those who try to emulate them) tell themselves even when they know it's not true.
I've been around many professionals and ex-professionals, and in very few situations has someone flat-out admitted, "Yeah, that guy was clearly better than me." And when they talk about why they retired, they rarely talk about a general physical decline and not being able to keep up. Usually it's about some kind of sudden and unfortunate injury that had lasting effects.
I thought of this when contemplating Gigi Buffon's post-match comments after Juventus' 1-0 win at Lyon in the Champions League on Tuesday night: "I love it when they celebrate your funeral, and then you show them that you're still alive."
Juventus did not play particularly well, but they came away with three points thanks in large part to three huge saves from Buffon. He got down well to keep out Alexandre Lacazette's penalty. (It was not the best-taken spot kick, but still, Buffon had to read his run and feint correctly.) He made a superb kick save off Corentin Tolisso's bullet header. And he produced the best of the bunch from Nabil Fekir's deflected shot, falling one way and instinctively supplying a strong hand in the opposite direction to paw away the ball.
If the opinion of colleagues or former colleagues matters, consider this reaction from former Sunderland goalkeeper David Preece. Or this one from Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea:
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- David De Gea (@D_DeGea) October 18, 2016
This came on the back of two major blunders in the past two weeks. Against Spain in World Cup qualifying, he came way out of his box to clear a ball and badly mistimed things. Against Udinese, he mishandled Jakub Jankto's rather tame finish.
When you're 38 and in your 21st season of professional football, mistakes mean folks will question whether you've lost it. This criticism is inevitable, and it's somewhat different from that of outfield players. When a legendary outfield player performs poorly later in his career, folks will wonder about whether he's fully fit, the manager is using him correctly or his teammates are making the right runs. He will get the benefit of the doubt for a long, long time.
Goalkeepers tend not to have that luxury. We don't think about their fitness because most of the time we think they're just standing around. Tactics and teammates matter less: Sure, poor tactics means a keeper will face more shots, but we still expect them to save what ought to be saved. On that front, the reality is most of us don't fully understand what keepers do. Most of us never played the position. Most ex-pros who analyze them never played the position.
Our footballing discourse doesn't focus on goalkeeping beyond the most obvious, and often meaningless, platitudes. Stuff like "he doesn't command the box," "he's not organizing his back four," "he really shouldn't be looking to punch it" or "why doesn't he put defenders on the post on corner kicks?"
One Champions League-winning manager once confessed to me that other than evaluating his kicking, he had no basis on which to judge his keepers beyond the most obvious mistakes. Fortunately, he said, he had a goalkeeping coach whom he trusted 100 percent and deferred to his judgment every time. It's just a different role and a different skill set. You wouldn't want your dentist performing open-heart surgery on you, would you?
Compounding all this is that mistakes by outfield players, especially forwards and midfielders, are often forgotten. After all, they usually lead to something not happening: a goal. Keeper blunders, on the other hand, are directly measurable in goals conceded. What's more, goalkeeping errors are relatively rare simply because a keeper isn't asked to make that many saves.
Take De Gea. Many would agree he's one of the best keepers in the world. Last season, he faced 111 shots on goal and made 80 saves. That's roughly 3.25 shots and 2.25 saves per match. And that's allowing for tame, mis-hit blooper shots that any civilian could save. So when there's a mistake, it stands out.
"I don't have a problem with people criticizing technical errors," Buffon said. "I do have a problem when people draw grand, sweeping conclusions. I think it's disrespectful."
He has a point. With keepers, the sample size is far, far smaller. If you're going to judge on incidents, you'd better be certain whether you're talking about loss of ability and judgment errors that are likely to recur or one-off mistakes, whether mental or technical.
But keepers probably aren't only sensitive to this because those judging and analyzing them in the punditocracy often don't fully understand the technical aspects of the role. The other big factor is that when the end comes, it comes suddenly.
An outfield player can age gracefully. Ryan Giggs made his final Premier League appearance at age 41. In his final six seasons, he never started more than 20 league games but often came on as a substitute and was still important at critical moments. Francesco Totti is still playing at 40. He, too, is mostly an impact sub and occasional starter these days, but he fills an important role. Both evolved into different types of players as they aged while still finding ways to contribute.
A keeper doesn't have that luxury. He's either good enough to start and play every minute of every game, or he's not. When the end comes, it's not gradual; it's a sudden fade to black. A bit like the last episode of "The Sopranos" when the guy in the Members Only jacket comes out of the bathroom and shoots Tony in the head. (You don't see it, Tony doesn't see it and he dies instantly, which is why everything goes dark.)
That's what keepers struggle against. They don't fade. They simply disappear. Or they move down the football food chain to a smaller club. In Buffon's case, that likely won't happen for a while.
"You know the one bit of criticism that I agreed with?" he said. "Those guys who said 'Buffon really should have done better.' Yeah, they're right. I should have."
That's the key. Buffon should only really start to worry when he makes a blunder, the critics say "he couldn't have done any better" and he finds himself nodding in agreement.