Day 31: Goaltending

dun dun dun dundundun dun
dun dun dun dundundun dun

Under pressure. Great, great bass line. Great description of the life of a goaltender. NPR released a radiolab piece on goalkeeping the other day, chronically all the great figures who have played in goal, and their respective traumas and broken dreams. Albert Camus claimed it was where he learned his greatest lessons. When your sporting activity of choice leads to a philosophy focused on clinging to small joys in the midst of a life largely mired in sadness you really ought to reconsider your priorities. 

Goaltending, for me, takes most of its appeal from two sources: pressure and self-reliance. The former demands an incredible level of intellectual focus. When I stand between the sticks every moment could become mine, or none, and so I crouch and stare and wait, wound like a spring. Every opposing touch on the ball is a threat, especially in the indoor game, and my current venture into futsal puts even more emphasis here. The field is small enough that a shot could come at any second from any angle. A single slip by a teammate and the ball is lost, less than a second from the back of my net. And it is my net.

Ownership comes from that sense of standing alone. The rest of the team may casually refer to the goal as “ours” but the keeper knows it belongs to him and him alone. When the ball reaches him no one else matters; he will make a play or he will not and no one will bail him out. The radiolab piece chronicled many great goaltending blunders and the keeper’s subsequent repudiation over a single mistake, magnified beyond all reason by the position of the mistake-maker. Every other player has a back-up or a partner. Even when a clear scoring chance goes awry there is hope to make it up later. Asamoah Gyan’s missed stoppage-time penalty at the last World Cup is the closest I can come to a truly irredeemable goof, and even he was able to bury another try five minutes later in the shootout. Gyan was hugged and held and praised for his bravery after the match ended his team‘s run. England keeper Robert Green? He blew one save in the first match of the tournament and yet bore the brunt of criticism for a pitiful performance by his entire team, a team made up almost exclusively of fabulously wealthy, better-known field players. The goalie’s greatest moments are forgotten, his errors immortalized, and in this regard he is alone. No one else faces such a fool’s gamble. The best the goalie can hope for is the grim satisfaction of a clean sheet, free from blemish and forgotten.

Camus was right, though, about the brilliance of little joys in a dark world. Goalies get little credit even when they are at their best, yet the bright moments they do find shine all the brighter for it. They belong solely to the man in the gloves, a tiny victory won by dint of his own ability and no one else’s. Yes, the defense helps, but when a shot comes on goal it comes because of their lapse. Each save is precisely that: a saving action on behalf of a largely impassive team. When enough of those saving actions are strung together the goalie can single-handedly preserve a game his team fully deserves to lose. If he can somehow be flawless for the full ninety minutes, if he can make the miraculous stop at the right moment, he alone can stymie ten superior opponents unaided. He can become a rock, a wall, an impervious force of nature. In that moment light breaks in and the world comes fantastically alive.

No one else needs to see that light. His teammates may see only a good game. To them a perfect day by the man in the back is merely a stroke of luck. His opponents will see only a source of frustration. To them he is an intruder, unfairly ruining an otherwise beautiful game they ought by right to win. To the spectators he is the same, either surprise bit of fortune or symbol of bad luck. None of it matters; the light is for him alone. No one but another keeper need ever know it’s there and so, ironically, it is often the opposing goalie whose praise matters most. Whether hero or goat his handshake is the one I cherish at game’s end. My teammates are great and all but he knows my world and its harshness, its wonder before the gloaming, and has stood in both the darkness and the light. All who face the same direction as me are my teammates and I appreciate them. All who stand apart, marked by a different-colored shirt, are my brothers. It is to them that my heart goes out.

Sleep tight, Robert Green, and may Camus visit you with lovely dreams of the absurd and the sublimely beautiful.