Surely, the mystique of goalkeeping disappears when the goal is not kept. Or does it? Consider the keeper’s weirdly eccentric standing in this most basic of games. He is the only player allowed to use his hands - the joyful exception to the raison d’etre of the sport. He plays with his back to the goal, is the only one with a view of the whole field and yet may actually face seriously cleated physical contact only a few times during a 90-minute game.
“I only started off as a goalie because I was fat,” says Tony Meola, the U.S. team’s Steven Seagal-coiffed keeper, whose self-deprecation belies the fact that he was a good enough high school athlete for the New York Yankees to scout him as a center fielder. “You understand in every game you’re the hero or the goat,” Meola says. “That’s part of the training. You have to enjoy the mystique because there’s no place to hide.” Actually, he might not have minded last week if the grass had opened beneath him. Anticipating a crossing pass, Meola found himself out of position to stop a shot by Romania’s Daniel Petrescu. One error denied his mates a tie, first place in Group A and an easier second-round game than their Fourth of July crucible against Brazil.
At least Meola made it through all his Cup games. Against Norway, Italy’s Gianluca Pagliuca raced forward to stop a ball. But before he reached it he slid out of the goalies’ 18-yard-by-44-yard box. Once beyond the lines, Pagliuca was just another player, forbidden to use his hands. When he put glove to ball, he was automatically tossed out of the game. Fortunately, untested Luca Marchegiani proved a worthy sub, but the highly touted Italians barely survived into the second round. Conversely, after Cameroon’s 39-year-old veteran Joseph-Antoine Bell quit the team because he didn’t care for the criticism headed his way, his replacement, Jacques Songo’o, gave up six goals to Russia.
Another keeper crisis found Spain’s star, Andoni (Zubi) Zubizarreta, suspended from his team’s opener, whereupon South Korea scored twice in the closing minutes to gain a startling tie. When Zubi returned, the Spanish tied Cup favorite Germany and beat Bolivia-Zubi dooby doo-to qualify for the second round.
Over the last fortnight, the fascinating keepers of the Cup have ranged from the handsome nobility of Ireland’s Packie Bonner to the balding, manic-eyed intensity of Sweden’s Thomas Ravelli. The best keeper of all might have been 35-year-old Michel Preud’homme of Belgium, who punched two sure goals off his crossbar in shutouts of Morocco and border rival Holland. But then Preud’homme himself was out’hommed by Saudi Arabia’s 21-year-old Mohammed al-Deayea. His 1-0 shutout made the guys whose nation gave them each parcels of land, oodles of cash and a Mercedes (just for qualifying) eligible for Allah-knows-what-all future rewards.
There was no doubt, though, who was the most colorful: the Mexican peacock, Jorge Campos. A former surfer from Acapulco, the 27-year-old Campos is 5 feet 9 (nine inches of which seems pompadour), virtually midget-size for a keeper, and the idol of his country. His face is on billboards, mini-replicas of his wackily flamboyant uniforms are all over schoolkids and his daring tendency to roam far from his cage is a subject of ongoing controversy. The 27-year-old himself always seems to be smiling, especially while he’s ducking questions about when he will appear in the Cup as both a goalie and a forward. “I just love to play,” he says. “It doesn’t matter where.” And if Mexico loses? “Losing is an accident,” he says. “Anything bad that happens on a soccer field is always an accident.”
Some accidents can be crippling, though. As an old soccer saw has it, keepers don’t win matches, they only lose them. Before Brazil invented Pele-or was it the other way around?-Moacyr Barbosa, now 73, was one of the all-time heroes for his country. Then he failed to block the winning goal for Uruguay in a shocking 1950 World Cup upset in Rio’s Maracana Stadium. Old keepers never die, they just fade into martyrdom. For years strangers in bars picked fights with Barbosa. Once a woman saw him and told her children: “Look-the man who made Brazil cry.” Recently Barbosa was implored by Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira not to pose for photographs with his players lest he jinx them. “I sometimes ask, “What’s the maximum penalty for a crime in Brazil?’” Barbosa says. “It’s 30 years! I figure Brazil owes me 14.”
For the ultimate in soccer crime, however, Chilean keeper Roberto Rojas was over the top (or scraping the bottom) in a qualifying match for World Cup ‘90. Facing defeat in Brazil, Rojas saw his opportunity when a woman threw a flare from the stands. In the drifting smoke Rojas dropped to the greensward, holding his head, whereupon his teammates carried him off, blood dripping everywhere, and refused to continue. Chile hoped to get either Brazil banned or a replay at a neutral site. But no such luck. An investigation proved the whole incident was staged. Chile was suspended from Cup play through ‘94, Rojas was banned from world soccer for life and the flare-thrower became a sex symbol in Brazil.
For wisdom, though, listen to Sergio Goycochea. In 1990 the third-string Argentine goalie became a national hero for his courageous World Cup play. This year he’s back on the bench again. The former hero remains philosophical, saying: “If I listened to everything I would have thrown myself under a train.” Alas, that happens to be just one more place to which a goalie can run or jump or dive or chase a ball to escape the mystique. But never hide.
