Goalkeepers have excelled in the ongoing World Cup so far. There have been breath taking saves, dives, punches and acrobatics from many goal tenders in this competition.
Buffon, Dida, Edwin van der Saar, Angolan Ricardo, Jason Shaka Hislop and the keepers of Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been outstanding under the bar. More top class quality performers are sure to emerge as the competition enters the more demanding stages in the remaining days.
In the past Lev Yashin, Pat Bonner, Peter Shilton, Sepp Maier, Schumacher, Dino Zoff, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Michel Preudhomme, Schmeichel, Vitor Baia and India's Brahmanand Shankwalkar were keenly followed as role models by budding goalkeepers and aspirants in their respective countries.
For us in India, besides the legendary long serving icon Brahmanand, in different decades we had quality keepers like Thangaraj, Sampath, Bandya Kakade, Mustufa, Henry Menezes, Shibaji Bannerjee, Atanu Bhattacharya, Bhaskar Ganguly, Arpan Dey, Sudhir, K.T. Chacko, Subhash Sinari, Arvinder Singh, Eugenio Cardozo, Chandrakant Naik and Bharat Morje.
Goalkeeping is an art and this World Cup has seen some quality goalkeepers already.
