Top 171 Goalkeeper Quotes

Often, there are fallacies when a journalist or a fan and sometimes even a coach who has never been a goalkeeper sees a cross in the six-yard box and says he should come out.

It’s my job to be a goalkeeper and keep the ball out of the net, and that’s what I’ve done. I’ve kept a clean sheet.

Who’s been with me longest? Kevin Blackwell. I signed him as a goalkeeper at Scarborough in ’86 and he’s basically been with me my whole career. He’s been my goalkeeper, reserve goalie, now my assistant manager.

In Germany, Jens Lehmann was a model style for a German goalkeeper.

I couldn’t have been a great goalkeeper without power, agility and quickness.

It’s very easy for people to overlook how important a good goalkeeper is in a team.

I don’t know why anyone would want to be a goalkeeper. It is a hard position to do well.

I’ve said all along I don’t want to be a number two goalkeeper.

I like to show my ability on the field. I’m not one to show off with words. I’m really looking forward to the chance. I’m a calm goalkeeper, and above all, I’ve got a real desire to win. When I get on the pitch, I give everything for the team, everything for the shirt.

A goalkeeper’s biggest attribute is to bounce back. If you have support from fans, backroom staff and team-mates to play the next game, it is easy.

I always train as a goalkeeper. I never train outside the goal.

For me, it is a dream come true to play in the Premier League as a No. 1 goalkeeper.

Being the Manchester United goalkeeper is one of the most difficult jobs in football when you look at the size of the club and the goalkeepers who have been here before. There is a lot of pressure on you, but I have worked hard to cope with that.

I try to control my box. I always think the goalkeeper has to be the chief of the box: it’s his area, and he has to defend it.

Petr Cech has been a top keeper in the Premier League for the last 10-12 years. When you’re growing up, you see him making these saves week in, week out. He’s probably been the most consistent goalkeeper in these last 10 years in the Premier League, so you can’t give him too much criticism.

What goalkeeper doesn’t like a little action?

A second-choice goalkeeper can sometimes say: ‘Oh, it’s a lack of games, it’s different when you train compared to when you play.’ But there is no excuse if you do everything right.

It is part of being a goalkeeper: there is nobody behind to save you.

As a goalkeeper, you learn from the guys you work with.

I’m always confident in my ability; you have to be as a goalkeeper.

Pierluigi Gollini is a highly-rated goalkeeper in Italy, he’s young, a good shot-stopper, he comes for crosses, he’s good with his feet.

The fact I have returned to Arsenal so many times is because they continued to believe I could become their No.1 goalkeeper.

Any goalkeeper that’s going to play for Liverpool is going to be looked at and scrutinised – every shot, everything about it is going to be scrutinised.

I will have to play as a goalkeeper and sometimes like a centre-back and play with my feet. I like that system and I feel comfortable in it.

In the end, you need to be a little masochistic to be a goalkeeper. A masochist and egocentric as well.

I’ve seen elbows that broke eye sockets. I’ve seen a German goalkeeper just level a French guy. His teammates thought he was dead lying on the ground. This was in 1982 at my first World Cup. But a bite is outside any kind of contact collision: dirty foul play. A bite is a bite.

I consider all aspects of being a goalkeeper as fundamental in the development of the side as a whole.

You look at some of the top teams in the world that have got the best strikers, and they are looking to buy another top striker. But if you have got a top goalkeeper, you are not often looking to buy another goalkeeper.

My son was a goalkeeper in soccer, and he luckily never had much head trauma. He never had any concussions or anything. I really wanted him to play football, but now I’m thankful he didn’t.

I think it’s important to make the simple things right: the easy saves, the catches, commanding the box. On top of that, if you make a super save, then that’s great. It’s the main base as a goalkeeper.

I know I am a good goalkeeper, and I’ve shown that a lot.

The goalkeeper is very, very important, as much as a striker. Anyone who wants to win a title has to have a goalkeeper.

It’s one of my stronger points claiming high balls. I’m tall, so that helps me. If you’re a smaller goalkeeper, crosses in England are even harder.

To be a Barca goalkeeper, it’s not enough to have quality. You have to make decisions and execute them.

When a goalkeeper makes a mistake, there is no one to save the goal.

When I was young, I didn’t know who India’s goalkeeper was then.

We arrived in Argentina with a lot of injured players, including our goalkeeper. Also we were unlucky to be drawn in the same group as the two tournament favourites Italy and Argentina.

Especially for the goalkeeper, you have to feel the confidence of every staff member and the team.

Having grown up in Poland, it is a dream come true for me to be playing every week in the Premier League as the No. 1 goalkeeper.

I think I chose wisely. When it came down to it, I knew I was a better goalkeeper than I was a bowler.

Alisson is a top-class goalkeeper, from what I’ve seen. He performed brilliantly for Roma, and for Brazil as well.

At Benfica, I started playing because the starting goalkeeper got injured.

So being a senior player, being a goalkeeper, being a team member, I think saving the ball is my first main priority.

As a goalkeeper, you have games where you’re really exhausted afterwards, even though you didn’t run as much.

I am a sportsman, not a brand ambassador, besides being the first goalkeeper of Adidas.

I train every day to be the best goalkeeper in the world; that is my aim.

I think a goalkeeper has to participate at the back of the defence and come off the line to play.

If a goalkeeper can save you 15-20 points a season, his value is high. It’s like a striker scoring 20 goals a season.

If there is one certainty in soccer, it is this: The quickest road to becoming a winning soccer team is to have a great goalkeeper.

When I was nine or ten, I had a chat with my coach and I asked if I could play in goal. I started playing as a goalkeeper and it was love at first sight. Only a goalkeeper knows how it is.

I enjoyed the position I was in as a tennis player. I was to blame when I lost. I was to blame when I won. And I really like that, because I played soccer a lot too, and I couldn’t stand it when I had to blame it on the goalkeeper.

Every player makes mistakes; every goalkeeper makes mistakes. Every manager does, every broadcaster – every person in life makes mistakes. But for goalkeepers, often when they make a mistake, it leads to a goal.

Beyond remembering me as a good goalkeeper or a bad goalkeeper, I just hope that people remember me for being a good person.

As a goalkeeper it’s so important to be in the right position to come and clear those through balls, to make those right decisions.

When I saw Iker play at the beginning, what most caught my attention is that a goalkeeper of 18 could stand the pressure of the Bernabeu. He had to be very strong.

In the past, I’d felt I didn’t want to try something because I might get shot down for it. I’d tried it with England, and the goalkeeper – I think it was against Poland – saved it. This time, it came off.

If you face the goalkeeper, you have to wait for him to go and then put the ball in the other side. It’s easy to say it but not so easy to do it when you are in the 88th minute of a game. So you must practise.

If a team concedes a goal, then the first question is always of the goalkeeper.

As a goalkeeper experience is a massive thing, and there is nothing better than playing games, which thankfully I managed to do at the Olympics.

In modern day football, you’ve got to play in different positions. I’ve played in numerous positions, apart from centre-back and goalkeeper, I think.

Normally, a goalkeeper has to be a perfect man. All my mistakes are visible so I have to keep my concentration all the time.

Beyond remembering me as a good goalkeeper or a bad goalkeeper, I just hope that people remember me for being a good person.

Sometimes it’s natural to do the safe pass, the no-frills thing, to pass it back to the goalkeeper. But I want them to do the daring thing.

I want to become the best person as a goalkeeper I can be.

As a goalkeeper, you like to be called upon.

I know I am a good goalkeeper, and I’ve shown that a lot.

The interaction between the goalkeeper and the back four has to be top to compete in the Premier League.

I try not to have nerves. You have to be cold-blooded. You have to think, to look at the goalkeeper: how is he positioned? You study them, you know about them, even if there isn’t always time, even if it’s sometimes intuition. You look to see where he is.

I enjoyed 13 successful seasons at Anfield, becoming the most decorated goalkeeper in league history. But I believe the match-fixing scandal arose because the press did not like this person they perceived as arrogant and who had a reputation for clowning around in games. Goalkeepers aren’t supposed to do that.

Neuer is the world’s No.1 keeper and can be used as a role model for all young keepers. He has everything a goalkeeper needs to have.

As a goalkeeper, you always expect every team to give you nightmares.

You’re always supposed to follow-up any cross or whatever towards the goalkeeper.

I know I’m a good goalkeeper.

When I played in Holland, I always tried to lob the goalkeeper. People used to say, ‘Oh, you’re always only trying to make a nice goal’. But I said, ‘Listen, if the goalie is a little bit off his line, how much space do you have on his left or right?’ It’s not a lot. ‘And how much space do you have above him?’

I wasn’t good-looking like the heroes. But I had a good physique having been a goalkeeper. I was like a panther.

Play the pass at the right moment – not on a dry pitch and not hitting it hard enough. We don’t have to accept it; that was a mistake – no goalkeeper should dribble in this situation.

We believe defending is very much a team job, and we can’t just rely on a back four and a goalkeeper.

Football is a fertility festival. Eleven sperm trying to get into the egg. I feel sorry for the goalkeeper.

If you’re a goalkeeper, it doesn’t matter what you save the ball with – if you keep it out, it’s not a goal.

First of all, I am and I remain a goalkeeper, but I try to be involved as much as I can and to help the defenders. I try to read dangerous situations in advance.

Freak mistakes happen sometimes as a goalkeeper that if you make them, then it’s always going to bite you.

If you are making mistakes at centre-back then inevitably that results in an effort on your goal and your goalkeeper has to make a save.

There is always a case as a goalkeeper, if you make an error, it will lead to a goal.

When you do things wrong, even a couple of mistakes, the press has the right to criticise. Much more so when you’re a goalkeeper – who remain in the spotlight forever.

If we win 1-0, I don’t care if the goalkeeper scores.

If you look at my professional history as a goalkeeper, I’m not somebody who makes many.

There’s a difference between a young goalkeeper and an experienced goalkeeper. In a pressure situation, an experienced goalkeeper can handle the situation in a calm manner.

Obviously, I couldn’t imagine that my career would go so well. When I first started, I wanted to play out of goal. But there was no goalkeeper, and the coach put me in goal.

As for being the best goalkeeper in the world, it’s been written occasionally, but I’d never say it myself.

I would prefer to play left-wing, striker or even goalkeeper – any other position – rather than sitting on the bench as a central midfielder.

It’s a good thing to interact with a top goalkeeper who has so much experience in the Premier League.

The coach put me in goal, and back then, we were playing on bone-hard ground: red ash; we even trained on black ash, which was worse. That’s not easy for a goalkeeper. My mother was always taking out her sewing kit for the countless holes in my training pants. For a long time, I had to buy my own gear.

It’s about being steady and taking the rough with the smooth, but that’s life as a goalkeeper.

The role of a goalkeeper in Pep’s team is like the 11th outfield player on the pitch, in terms of the build-up, the pressing. I think it’s more difficult. There is a bigger responsibility because you can’t afford to make any mistakes. If you do, it probably ends in an opposition goal.

Neuer is of course the best goalkeeper in the world.

Every old goalkeeper loses a step at some point, but you can gain that back through experience.

I didn’t like to wear the same clothes as everyone else. I wanted to be special, also because I knew I needed something else. I found it more fun to play as a goalkeeper than any other position.

I know I’ve put myself in a position to develop and grow and become the best goalkeeper and person that I can be.

Why did I choose to be a goalkeeper? I don’t know – it is good question. I have asked myself many times when things have not being going well.

People from outside don’t know how difficult it is to be goalkeeper.

Everybody makes mistakes, but when goalkeepers make them, it is costly. That’s the nature of being a goalkeeper.

After matches, the highlights show mostly the goals, scoring chances, assists. The spectator tends not to remember that, as a goalkeeper, I make difficult saves at great risk and start moves with my efforts.

I never look at the goalkeeper’s eyes.

As a goalkeeper, you like to be called upon.

It’s difficult to love a goalkeeper. He is invisible, and is only in the limelight when he makes a blunder.

I enjoyed the position I was in as a tennis player. I was to blame when I lost. I was to blame when I won. And I really like that, because I played soccer a lot too, and I couldn’t stand it when I had to blame it on the goalkeeper.

The best part of a goalkeeper is that when you are the second choice you get to gain a lot of experience by sitting outside and watching.

There are so many things that a goalkeeper coming to the Premier League has not experienced in a different league.

I would always like to be a goalkeeper.

De Gea is a great goalkeeper. He is excellent.

It’s about being steady and taking the rough with the smooth, but that’s life as a goalkeeper.

Since myself and a few others like Pepe Reina, we haven’t had a goalkeeper who has commanded his area as well as Alisson.

People from outside don’t know how difficult it is to be goalkeeper.

As a goalkeeper, you’ve got to have mental toughness, and that’s one thing I’m good at.

I regard Buffon as one of the best goalkeepers in the history of football. He is a legend for me, a fantastic man, and an excellent goalkeeper.

The biggest thing I have taken away from these two years at Roma is the fact I grew as a goalkeeper.

I hate players who always play the ball back to the goalkeeper.

What goalkeeper doesn’t like a little action?

The mental aspect of being a goalkeeper is very important so you have to go into the game with full concentration and confidence. That is a big part of your game and the Premier League is the most demanding league for any goalkeeper.

As a goalkeeper, you want to be the best, but you can only get better by playing games, making saves, and putting in man-of-the-match performances.

My first obsession was actually sports. I was a very good handball goalkeeper. With special permission, I played in the premier league in Germany before I was even old enough.

As a goalkeeper, I’m well aware that any mistake can be magnified by the fans. But it’s true that here at Manchester United, there’s added pressure.

It is important to have the attitude and self confidence to be Barca’s goalkeeper, and that I’ve got.

I turned goalkeeper. My father had been one and we had a goal in the back garden. He’d taught me a bit about it so I thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t really know whether it was going to be a good choice or a bad one but I joined a small local team as a keeper and it turned out to be a really good decision.

As a goalkeeper, Van der Sar can do everything. He is very good at coming off his line, and he is also effective as a libero – what they call in England a ‘sweeper keeper.’

Being a father brings with it a lot of responsibilities, just like being a goalkeeper does.

The goalkeeper is very, very important, as much as a striker. Anyone who wants to win a title has to have a goalkeeper.

Paolo Maldini never won, but he was the best defender in the world. Gianluigi Buffon never won; he was the best goalkeeper in the world for many years. But this is the story of the Ballon d’Or.

I choose to be a goalkeeper.

Every old goalkeeper loses a step at some point, but you can gain that back through experience.

To be a modern goalkeeper, I have to think offensively, to initiate our attacking moves safely and securely.

You can’t win any trophies unless you’ve got a top goalkeeper.

When I started, I was a striker for the first few months. Our goalkeeper didn’t show up once, and the team was asked who wanted to fill in for him. No-one really wanted to, but I thought it would be an interesting challenge, so I agreed to do it.

I have always seen myself as a Real Madrid goalkeeper and have never doubted my ability.

As for being the best goalkeeper in the world, it’s been written occasionally, but I’d never say it myself.

If you face the goalkeeper, you have to wait for him to go and then put the ball in the other side. It’s easy to say it but not so easy to do it when you are in the 88th minute of a game. So you must practise.

As a goalkeeper you need to be good at organising the people in front of you and motivating them. You need to see what’s going on and react to the threats. Just like a good manager in business.

Buffon may be a bit smaller, but he has everything that you want from a great goalkeeper. He relays his confidence to his defence, and they feel that they have a great keeper behind them. Everybody can make mistakes, but his consistency level is amazing. You never see him have a bad game.

You’ll always find that goalkeepers are a team within the team, and I’ve always had good relationships with the others, which is important because nobody understands the mindset of a goalkeeper like the other goalkeepers.

If you concede a goal, it can be up to seven or eight mistakes leading up to it but, obviously, as a goalkeeper you have to accept it has gone past you.

Over the years I think I have developed a better understanding of being a goalkeeper – and I mean on and off the pitch. I mean how to deal with certain situations, how to prepare myself for games, how to read the game. I think I needed to leave Arsenal to do that.

When you are a goalkeeper, you know the responsibility.

Alisson is an excellent goalkeeper.

I was a goalkeeper at Crewe as a kid but piled on pounds when I stopped training every day.

Especially as a goalkeeper, when you are closed down, you have to make a decision in a split second, and sometimes it is better to make the wrong one rather than wait and see what’s happening.

At Benfica, I started playing because the starting goalkeeper got injured.

The star-jump technique – that is a big part of being a handball goalkeeper, and I brought that move into football. It is a very effective way of saving a chance.

As a goalkeeper, you’ve got to have mental toughness, and that’s one thing I’m good at.

Top of my wishlist is to play for a club that wants me to be their goalkeeper.

I always wanted to be going out on loan and playing football and maturing as a goalkeeper.

It is part of being a goalkeeper: there is nobody behind to save you.

Spalletti made a difference for me. He gives great importance to the details and, at minimum, wants the goalkeeper to know how to play with the ball at his feet.

I’m going to play with one goalkeeper, obviously, one defender, one midfielder and two attackers, very offensive because we need to score goals.

The role of a goalkeeper in Pep’s team is like the 11th outfield player on the pitch, in terms of the build-up, the pressing. I think it’s more difficult. There is a bigger responsibility because you can’t afford to make any mistakes. If you do, it probably ends in an opposition goal.

Paolo Maldini never won, but he was the best defender in the world. Gianluigi Buffon never won; he was the best goalkeeper in the world for many years. But this is the story of the Ballon d’Or.

There’s no pressure on a goalkeeper in a penalty shootout. So it’s a nice opportunity for us to have some fun and try and make some saves.

The team I used to play for as a kid, we changed goalkeeper every game. Finally I went in goal and we won – and they made me stay there.

I have always seen myself as a Real Madrid goalkeeper and have never doubted my ability.

You have to win the title with a strong team and a strong defence, but I don’t only like to talk about the four defenders and the goalkeeper when you concede goals. It’s about the team.

I started to play, like all kids do, not as a goalkeeper. I liked scoring goals; in the end, it’s all about scoring goals.

As a goalkeeper you need to be good at organising the people in front of you and motivating them. You need to see what’s going on and react to the threats. Just like a good manager in business.

Football is a fertility festival. Eleven sperm trying to get into the egg. I feel sorry for the goalkeeper.

Swansea invested in me. They took a chance on me because I was a second-choice goalkeeper with not much experience when it comes to Premier League games.

As a goalkeeper, you feel like if you’re treated like adults and have your position explained to you, you respect that. You might not agree with it, but you get on with it.

I have always said that a striker scores a goal but not every goal is scored by a striker. A goalkeeper can make a mistake which is a goal, but every goal still goes past him and you have to accept that.

Of course you think about the goalkeeper you are facing before a game. You have to prepare yourself for the game and think about the weakness of the players you are up against.

Normally, a goalkeeper has to be a perfect man. All my mistakes are visible so I have to keep my concentration all the time.

As a goalkeeper, you have so much time back there where you’re alone, and you’re talking to yourself in your head.

I was a goalkeeper, but through my career, I spent almost as much time sitting on the bench as I did playing.

Scoring from a metre out is just as beautiful as lobbing a goalkeeper from the halfway line.

As a goalkeeper if you concede two goals at the end of the game you never can be happy.