On Goalkeepers
Over time, football fans and sport journalists have taken goalkeepers as a sign of isolation. As sport journalist Jonathan Wilson puts it in his novel “The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper,” he laments the “most influential opinion-formers have found a scapegoat: Marx blamed the capitalist system, Freud blamed sex, Dawkins blamed religion, and Dr. Atkins blamed the potato… footballers blame the goalkeeper.” As the last line of defense with the most influence over the result of the game, the goalkeeper’s position makes him the most vulnerable player. As if they weren’t isolated enough, they are adorned in different clothes, making them look more like a target than part of a team. As a result of these factors, goalkeepers have always been mythologized as an intellectual, a pariah in some countries that have mythologized the sport as religion, and an enigma for all.
The solidarity of the position often gives…show more content… Brazil has a history of scapegoating goalkeepers. Even when they managed to produce elite, Champions League winning goalkeepers, they were always blamed for the team’s shortcomings. With Brazil hosting it for the first time since the edition that ended in their crushing loss against Uruguay, sport journalists dug up the narrative reiterated the mythology. The revived mythology was not just used to push narrative in newspapers, it lingered in the public’s mind. In 2014, Brazil went in with a goaltender who just four years prior had won the Champions League—arguably the biggest trophy one can win in the sport. Yet, every question a journalist asked Julio Cesar revolved around Barbosa. Despite Cesar essentially winning Brazil’s Round of 16 match for his team, he was scapegoated by the Brazilian press and fans for conceding seven goals against Germany in true Brazilian
