Keeper in unfamiliar zone

Football:Known for his daring charges upfield, Neuer enters a new area with his Ballon d'Or nomination

The goalkeeper is, by the laws of the game, a singular and sometimes solitary creature. He can be hero or fall guy, but rarely does he get anywhere near being named player of the year.

Manuel Neuer is the exception.
The Bayern Munich goalkeeper is one of three finalists this year for the Ballon d’Or award for world player of the year. The other two, inevitably, are Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

The winner will be announced January 12, and most are betting on Ronaldo. However, the fact that Neuer is on the shortlist breaks a trend.

Only Lev Yashin, the Russian known as the Black Spider because he always wore black from head to toe, has won the Ballon d’Or as a goalkeeper. That was back in 1963, when it was a European trophy awarded by France Football magazine.

Now jointly awarded by FIFA and France Football, the Ballon in a way contradicts the team essence of the sport. But goalies do that anyway by virtue of being the only player allowed to use every part of their anatomy to defend.

This is where Neuer, at times, goes to extremes. He stands tall and strong at 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds and is fearless and ruthless. Just like Yashin did decades ago, Neuer imposes his will on the defenders in front of him and attempts to do the same to opposing strikers.

The game between Bayern and Augsburg in the Bundesliga a few days ago was typical. One minute, Neuer was boldly rising through the air, literally head and shoulders above anyone else as he plucked the ball into his gloved hands. The next minute, Neuer being Neuer, he rushed 30 yards off his goal line to chase down the ball, winning it with a sliding tackle out on the wing.

There is a reason the Germans know him as the “sweeper-keeper,” a man who ventures beyond his area and takes a risk that some clever opponent (a Messi or a Ronaldo perhaps) could take advantage of.

Few actually ever do. It is a keeper’s prerogative to leave his area, but he relinquishes the privilege of being able to use his hands when he does so. In Neuer’s case, there is a blot on his fine year because he was extremely lucky to stay on the field after an incident halfway through the World Cup final in Brazil.

It came just after halftime when Neuer rushed toward Argentina’s Gonzalo Higuaín. It was a high-speed, one-on-one situation that demanded a split-second decision, eyes on the ball and more than little bravery, and Neuer took out both the ball and his opponent.
His fist legitimately punched the ball away. But as Neuer leaped toward his opponent, his knee struck Higuaín in midair, at shoulder height. It was reminiscent of the horrendous foul by Harald Schumacher, the West Germany keeper, when he barged into France’s Patrick Battiston at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

There was a deathly hush in that stadium in Seville that day as Battiston lay comatose on the ground. He had lost two teeth and suffered damaged vertebrae, and at least one player, Michel Platini, feared for a moment that Battiston was dead.

The Dutch referee at that game, Charles Corver, awarded a free kick — to the Germans.
Schumacher showed neither concern for his opponent nor remorse. “There is no sympathy among professionals,” he later told reporters. “but I will pay for the crowns on Battiston’s teeth.”

Neuer’s charge on Higuaín lacked the callous intent of the Schumacher assault. But it was borderline, to say the least, because his knee was high and the collision reckless. Once again, the arbiter on the field, the Italian referee Nicola Rizzoli, gave the goalkeeper the benefit of the doubt.

When Rizzoli reviewed the collision between Germany’s keeper and Argentina’s striker, he stuck to his opinion that it was not a penalty. “Neuer reached the ball first,” the referee said. “Gonzalo complained at the moment, but when the match ended he congratulated me for refereeing the match in a perfect way.”

Perfect or imperfect, the high-speed impact was caused by two men who only had eyes for the ball. The goalie had the advantage of being able to use his fist on the ball. But many viewed it as a dangerous play worthy of a red card and a penalty against Neuer.

The margins are thin. The action happens in the blink of an eye. After the World Cup, Neuer referred to the Schumacher incident when he spoke to journalists back in Germany. “That was a brutal scene,” he acknowledged. "I hope something like that never happens to me, but you certainly can’t rule it out.

“When I come out of my area, I rely on timing. I don’t mean any harm to my opponent. Coming out of my area is the way I play, I am not going to change, but I know I run the risk of a red card.”

The onrushing keeper against an onrushing forward is one of the thrills, and risks, of the game.

Bert Trautmann, another German keeper, was remembered until his death in 2013 for continuing to play the English FA Cup final in 1956 despite breaking vertebrae in his neck when he dove at the feet of an opponent.

Bravery is a given in a goalkeeper. So is the agility that enabled Manchester United’s David de Gea to pull off nine saves in their game against Liverpool recently. Often, though, the goalkeeper’s role is perceived as negative. He is there to stop the ball crossing his line, which maybe explains why 51 years have passed since the sport honored a keeper — Yashin — as player of the year.