Howdy keeper nation. Welcome back to the weekly goalkeeper round up. In case you missed it (or just love re-reading stuff), I wrote about how a goalkeeper's GAA isn't an accurate gauge of how good he is in a correctly titled "Why a Goalkeeper's GAA is Complete Bunk".
- Germany's Nadine Angerer won the woman's Player of the Year Award, seemingly for her two penalty stop performance in the Euro final against Norway. Her acceptance speech was in German but luckily an old man translates it in his raspy, English voice. Here is a video of her two penalty saves and another random save. She signed with Portland so if you're interested in watching the best women's player in the world you might have that luxury this next year.
- Manuel Neuer was named to the World XI. See how good he is. Neuer was also voted top goalkeeper of the year, which would make sense. It was a bit of a runaway but Buffon, Cech, Courtois and Valdes finished second through fifth. Casillas didn't make the list but is still pretty decent.
- Some MLS 'keeper signings happened. Portland signed ex-Sounder/Phoenix FC Andrew Weber and Chicago picked up Kyle Reynish. Portland now has around a bazillion goalkeepers so I'm not sure what their plan is there. Reynish started in goal for the Cosmos this last season so it's odd to see this move knowing he'll be on the bench behind Johnson. Cosmos re-signed backup Jimmy Maurer. Also MLS great Pat Onstad was picked up as Columbus' goalkeeper coach and will be working with Steve Clark this season.
- I don't normally over-analyze every EPL game but I thought Guzan's first conceded goal against Arsenal was a good one to look at for footwork. You can see that Guzan is in good position but instead of stepping with his left foot to dive he kicks it out to drop quicker. This type of save would be appropriate for a hard shot close to the body but the shot is too far away from Guzan to get a hand on it. Look at the last picture (below) and see how much of the goal he can't cover without a step.
- MLS released their top five goalkeepers to watch, only furthering the confusion of who the best goalkeeper is after Andre Blake. Travis Clark tries to help us out by giving some highlights of all the players at the combine (specifically check out Billings, McCarthy, Otte).
- The MLS Combine has been going on this past weekend.
Game 1 - Diaz looked pretty bad, Renfro made a nice save at 0:56 after giving up a soft goal of his own.
Game 2 - Blake makes an acrobatic save at 0:51 and Heemskerk looks a step behind.
Game 3 - Berner and Heemskerk didn't look that sharp to me.
Game 4 - Renfro and Blake did their job.
Game 5 - Renfro gives up a soft goal, Heemskerk skip-set is very gaudy, and Otte is good at saving things with his chest.
Game 6 - Blake and Berner have some week knee syndrome in their goals. (Don't go to ground if they don't shoot the ball!)
- USL Pro released the names of eleven goalkeepers that will attend their combine on January 23-26. Brian Billings and John McCarthy stuck out to me but this is also after the MLS draft and the same weekend as the NASL's combine. So we'll see how that plays out.
- I stumbled on some Kevin Piedrahita highlights. He is a 22 year old who has spent time in the US Youth programs and is now playing in Colombia.
- Will Hesmer is being inducted in the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame later this month. Huge congratulations to him on his career.
- USA Prospects reported that Jacole Turner would be returning to Sporting Kansas City from Atletico Madrid's C team but there was some following discussion about when he was last over there.
- EPL's own fantasy site has been releasing some nice "best of" goalkeeping videos that include the immortal Brad Friedel. The links they provide to share (best keepers, best saves) look like they're trying to steal your credit card, though.
- Buffon isn't happy with the media, "Some comments infuriate me or make me laugh depending on how I wake up on the morning."
- NWSL's latest addition, Houston Dash, signed Bianca Henninger, a 23 year old that has spent time with the U23, U20 teams.
- I'm super late on this but Robert Green finally had a positive report without being tied to that you-know-what incident back you-know-where-in-South-Africa and I thought that was good for him.
- There were some good third round saves from the FA cup and, hardly related, maybe you wanted to watch the top highlights from the 2012-13 EPL season.
- Here are the top ten highest paid goalkeepers. It is a lot.
- I called this. You're welcome.
- Some BigSoccer threads that caught my eye...
- Sean Johnson trained with Jamaica as a 16 year old... in 2005.
- US Goalkeeping Discussion mentions a French-American, U23 USYNT alum. He is quoted in here about his decision to go to a third division team in France.
- Carlos Avilez and William Pulisic (pul-eh-sich) travel with the U17s to Turkey to play to play France, Norway, and Scotland. Avilez is playing up a cycle and Pulisic played some in the December Nike Friendlies.
- Alex Horwath is on trail with a second division team in Sweden. Horwath played at Tampa in the USL Pro this last year.
- And below are just some cool goalkeeping pictures I saw this week. The hand mold is Brad Guzan and also special thanks to Maxi Rodriguez for my feline addition!
