Читать книгу The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines онлайн

28 страница из 140

Van der Sar, who excelled for Manchester United around the same time as Reina was doing so for Liverpool, was famed for his quality in possession, primarily because he grew up at Ajax, where the visionary Johan Cruyff had insisted that the goalkeeper be an eleventh outfielder long before the back-pass change. Van der Sar became the accepted goalkeeping role model, with Thibaut Courtois and Manuel Neuer citing him as their inspiration because he was so comfortable on the ball. Kicking had become an essential part of modern goalkeeping, and those poor in possession found themselves marginalised.

Meanwhile, Schmeichel also helped revolutionise the Premier League in a different manner entirely. Of the 242 players who started a Premier League match on the Premier League’s opening weekend, just 11 were foreign. By virtue of simple probability, you’d expect only one of the 11 to be a goalkeeper. Instead, it was four: Schmeichel, plus Wimbledon’s Dutchman Hans Segers, Canadian international Craig Forrest at Ipswich and Czech Jan Stejskal for QPR. A year later, with overseas outfielders still rare, there were six more foreign regulars between the posts: Australian Mark Bosnich at Aston Villa, Russian Dmitri Kharine at Chelsea, Norwegian Erik Thorstvedt at Tottenham, Zimbabwe’s Bruce Grobbelaar, who had regained his place at Liverpool, and two more Czechs, Luděk Mikloško of West Ham and Pavel Srníček of Newcastle. Jim Barron, then the goalkeeping coach at Aston Villa, noted how foreign goalkeepers were more proactive than their English counterparts, commanding their box better and possessing superior distribution. England had always prided itself on the quality of its goalkeepers, but foreign imports were evolving the role.