A tale of goalkeepers

Let me admit it – yesterday I spent a long afternoon of mixed emotion, glued to sport on TV, switching effortlessly from BBC rugby at Twickenham to La Liga on Sky TV. After cheering on England’s inspired second half performance against France, I nearly fell asleep towards the end of the first half of yesterday’s Mallorca- Barca tie, took a short meal break, and then lay awake until the early hours recovering from the nail-biting excitement of the last minutes of the Deportivo-Real Madrid game that kept me, tensed, on the edge of my armchchair.

The star of the evening was undoubtedly Depor’s  Daniel Aranzubia, one of a long line of heroic goalkeepers produced by Athletic Bilbao’s excellent youth  academy Lezama. At 31, Aranzubia is no spring chicken, but he could have become more famous had it not been for the fact that Athletic  opted for  Gorka Izaiza as their first team choice and Azoiza’s stint in the Spanish squad was destined to be short lived with the advent of the exceptional Casillas and the similarly talented Valdes.

 Nonetheless Aranzubia’s star has grown brighter since joining Depor. Last night’s extraordinary series of saves against a sustained Madrid attack follows other high points in recent years. They included saving three penalties in Depor’s UEFA cup tie against SK Brann in October 2008, and scoring with his head against Almeria last month, the first goalkeeper in La Liga history to score from open play. That Aranzubia is not even a third or fourth choice for Vicente Del Bosque’s national squad is a reflection of the extraordinary generous pool of great goalies that Spain can draw on, as it has been able to do for many decades.

By comparison, Pinto Barca’s second choice goalkeeper, playing instead of the injured Valdes, last night showed himself, yet again well short of the kind of quality in that position one would expect in a  club that in its history has had its fair share of heroes defending the net- from Zamora  and Ramallets through to Andoni Zubizarreta. At 35, Pinto is four years older than Aranzubia and nowhere near his class or reliability.

Prior to last night’s match, it was reported in the Spanish media that Pinto was looking forward to playing at Mallorca, the place where he made his debut with Celta and later, when playing for Barca stopped a crucial penalty. Well enjoyment is not an emotion he shared last night. There is something deeply unsettling about watching Barca’s fortunes in this season now largely hanging on the antics of this most unpredictable and unstable of goalkeepers whose main claim to fame is having been disciplined by UEFA for improper conduct during Barca’s Champions’ League group tie against FC Copenhagen last October. Pinto had whistled to the advancing Cesar Santin, to fool him into thinking that the referee had caught him offside. Last night’s Pinto performance was marked by a surplus of panicky punches when a surer hand would have held the ball.

With his long-hair tied in a bun, Pinto reminds me of the latter years of David Seaman, long after David Seaman had gone off the boil, and had become a caricature of him. With his cloth cap and polo neck jumper, the great Zamora – El Divino as fans called him- never allowed his eccentricity to get in the way of his courage and skill. The same cannot be said of Pinto who lacks both charisma and leadership what he more than makes up for what Catalans excuse as rauxa (creative madness).

Not even Messi’s goals could make up for the fact that this was a tired looking and uninspired  Barca , struggling without Xavi, Pujol, Alves and last but by no means least Valdes.