Thinking back over the first six months of the Premier League season, it has seemed like an unusually poor year for goalkeepers. This has been evident from the opening weekend, when a plethora of minor goalkeeping errors led to a forgettable start to the season.
David de Gea has been sensational, but aside from the Man United keeper, who has stood out between the posts this year?
Sometimes I wish that, through some glaring administrative error, I had been accidentally registered for the Ajax youth academy, even if it was just for one day. Then, in semi-good conscience, I could exploit that fact to have my own Wikipedia page, Transfermarkt profile and agent, allowing me to bounce around the world on one-year contracts — obviously being found out as total trash time after time — living my best life.
For those who have watched the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you know there are alternate dimensions out there with different Spider-Heroes. Until Sunday, the Spider-Man of our dimension had yet to reveal themself.
We now know there is a Spider-Man in this dimension and he plays in the Polish Ekstraklasa. Frantisek Plach is a 29-year-old Slovakian goalkeeper who plays for Piast Gliwice in Poland’s top league.
You know that feeling as a kid when you’re thoroughly enjoying something and then your little brother comes along and kills the mood? Perhaps you’re telling a great story at the dinner table and then the little rat has to make it about him.
Flamengo striker Rodrigo Muniz had a similar feeling during Saturday’s Campeonato Carioca game against Macaé.
On top of having one of the most badass names on the USMNT, Duane Octavious Holmes scored one of the best goals you’ll see from the past weekend. This Duane Holmes goal vs Swansea City was his second of the game and an absolute beauty.
Holmes might have had the most impressive weekend out of all USMNT players in Europe. Holmes bagged a brace in his fifth game back with boyhood club Huddersfield Town. His two goals in the second half came only three minutes apart. The first was a cool finish that followed an excellent string of passes.
Sometimes as a goalkeeper you have a day where you're unbeatable. But this is a rare nadir that requires the perfect combination of variables.
You have to be feeling great, every shot is just within the outer reaches of your diving range and you have to make a big save early.
Due to the amount of luck involved, these matches are scarce — not unlike a no-hitter or perfect game in baseball — but not unachievable.
The most likely ending is a deflected shot finding the back of the net in the 85th minute, a result of luck finally running out.