2023-07-15 09:07:04
Crazy Gatti did not like to be called “archer”. He said that he was a player who could catch the ball with his hand. It’s true. But it is also equally true that goalkeepers are different from the rest of their teammates: they precisely hold the ball with their hands, they play in a relatively small rectangle from which they almost never leave, they dress differently from the rest of their teammates, if they untie their bootlaces need help from another player, they usually celebrate their team’s goals alone, without hugging anyone, they have a different complexion.
There’s an inherently nerdy quality to the goalie job. Of course, Gatti in the lead, there are some who made that situation a virtue (I say that situation and not that defect –as is usually used for that phrase– because nerdiness for me is never a defect). Chilavert and more recently Dibu Martínez, each one in their own way, also managed to reverse that condition, and became something else: one, a scorer and leader, the other a penalty shootout duelist and a strategist for the disturbance of the kicker’s peace of mind And, above all, the three achieved another very rare thing for an archer: to be idols. Martínez’s popularity comes in second (obviously very far) after Messi’s, but much higher than most of the national team’s players. For an archer to be the second most popular in the team is already extraordinary. Before, Chilavert was probably the first archer seller of divers with his name. Gatti, the first that the boys wanted to imitate. But let’s stop talking about Gatti, Chillavert and Martínez, because perhaps it’s time to rescue and value the figure of the nerdy, nerdy goalkeeper. Not of the nerd who manages to turn that situation around and becomes a winner, like them, but of the archer as someone rare, strange, not very seductive, opaque, and yet an archer. And many times, great goalkeeper. In recent years that place has been occupied by Armani. You have to write the big story of Armani, the very good archer without charisma.
It is true that, for some time now, they have scored several silly goals against him, and he seemed insecure in aspects that were never his forte, such as taking crosses out of the six-yard box (and inside the six-yard box, too). The goal that was eaten against Vélez, in the Amalfitani, was plain and simply rude. There is no reason to rule out that, close to turning 37, he is thinking of returning to Colombia, where he is an idol. But much of what River won was thanks to him. That is a truth as certain as that the sun rises in the east. What happened if he didn’t cover that one-on-one with Benedetto in the last minutes of the first final at La Bombonera? And continuing with Boca, what would have happened if he did not save Galván’s penalty, from Racing, in the last minute of the 2022 championship? And in the national team, if he did not save the penalty against Paraguay in the 2019 Copa América, and Argentina was eliminated, as everything indicated, did not Scaloni have many chances of being fired? He could give many, many more examples. The more nerdy the goalie is, the better player he will be.
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