Special Feature: 10 greatest goalkeeping saves of all time – Part 3
The last two saves on this list are the best ever made in the history of football.
Grégory Coupet was the main man in one of them; his save came against a Barcelona team which was at its peak. With the likes of Ronaldinho and Guily along with Edmilson and Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, they went onto win the UEFA Champions
League in 2006. However, in the same season they faced Lyon in European Cup’s group stages in a match that has been hence forth remembered as Coupet’s moment.
Coupet was playing for the French side Lyon at the goal and it was a near perfect save by the Frenchman. Lyon were playing Barcelona at the Spanish giant’s home stadium i.e. the Nou Camp. Lyon approached the match with a confidence
and swagger that was expected of them after they had won the French football league’s division one title in the previous season; however Barcelona had other plans for them.
For the first half of the match, Barcelona dominated the game and had their fun with the French club side, who at times looked amateurish in front of the skilful Catalonians. Ronaldinho was on fire for Barcelona as he was dictating
play in the middle of the park from his left-midfield position. Barcelona scored first to break French hearts and quickly took a two goal lead against the French champions. Nonetheless, Lyon fought back valiantly and pulled the score back to two all.
It was a marvellous comeback which was supported by Coupet’s save in the 60th minute. Barcelona surged forward and Ronaldinho tried to cheekily chip the French goalkeeper, Coupet ran back and kept the ball out of the goal
just in time but his finger tips could only help it into the path of Samuel Eto, who unleashed a shot of his own in an attempt to bundle the ball into the back of Lyon’s net. Coupet wasn’t going to let his good work go to waste and he quickly scrambled off
the ground to make his second save in quick succession. Gregory’s heroics kept Lyon in the game till late but eventually Eto did find the back of the net for Barcelona to give them three goals to two victory over the French champions.
The last and perhaps the best save ever made as far as football is concerned is the most famous save of all time, the save that was made by English national team’s goalkeeper, Gordon Banks against Pele’s header in the 1970 World Cup.
England approached the 1970 World Cup as a force to be reckoned with. They were the defending champions as they met Brazil in a quarterfinal clash between the two sides. Brazil totally controlled the match and ended up as eventual winners but the real victory
in the match went to Banks. Later on recalled his save as the moment with which people will remember him by. Even Pele himself termed the save as the best he had ever seen.
It was a near impossible one to make, as Pele headed the ball into the ground and it was on its journey into the back of the English net but Banks somehow dove down and then punched the ball up and over his goal’s cross bar. It was
a magnificent sight and Banks late remarked that people won’t remember him for winning the world cup but for the save itself as it was such a huge thing to pull off an astonishing blinder against the world’s best player back then.
Sadly though, England went onto lose the match by a score line of one goal to nil. Nonetheless due to his save, Banks became famous as people started referring to him in an English idiom known as “Safe as the Banks of England”.
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