| Who
would want to be a goalkeeper? The image of the week must be the inconsolable
figure of Santiago Cañizares as he collapsed sobbing after Valencia lost
the penalty shoot out against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final.
Cañizares had saved a penalty during the match and another in the sudden
death round of spot kicks, but there was an even larger than life figure at the
other end, Bayern's Kahn, who saved three penalties in the shoot out to leave
Valencia as runners up for the second year running. Cañizares still
leads our table though, and we was called up again by Spain for their World Cup
double header next week. Incidentally, did anyone spot our deliberate mistake
last week? It wasn't Cañi who kept a clean sheet in the league but
Palop, as Cúper rested ten of his first team including his keeper. Not
too many great goalkeeping performances at the weekend, with only Mora and
Cañizares playing the full 90 minutes out of the top eight in our table.
Molina was suspended, and with Kouba injured, Songo'o was called back from
international duty with Cameroon to take his place. Leo Franco is still injured
and Casillas is still out of favour, as was Bizzarri this week, dropped after
letting in a silly last minute goal last week. Their replacements Miki,
César and Ricardo all did well, with Miki recording his third clean
sheet in a row, César keeping out Alavés as Madrid wrapped up the
league title, and Ricardo contributing to his team's very important victory in
La Coruña. Casillas was still included in the Spanish squad, but will
almost certainly be understudy to Cañizares. Last week's double
goalscorer Nacho González was in the news again but for different
reasons after clashing with teammate Vinny Samways in the Las Palmas dressing
room at half time. Nobody is saying what happened, but both were replaced at
half time, and Samways had to be consoled by his fellow players after the
break. Cicovic took over in goal from González. Elsewhere, Zaragoza's
Juanmi was rushed to hospital with acute appendicitis shortly before their
match with Real Sociedad and will be out for the rest of the season. Lainez
took his place. Other than Miki and César, there were clean sheets for
Celta's Cavallero, Villarreal's López Vallejo and Oviedo's Esteban, who
took Barcelona out of the running for a Champions League place at the Nou Camp.
Two keepers let in one third of all the goals scored, with Rayo's Keller
letting in four at Mallorca and Herrera of Alavés five at Real Madrid. A
case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (28.05.01) |
