A week before the 2017/2018 Champions League final against Liverpool, Keylor Navas spoke to journalists at the Cannes Film Festival. He says he is more nervous walking the Red Carpet of Cannes than about facing trio of Liverpool's lush attackers, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane. This comment shows the original character of the Costa Rican national team captain: humble and tend to be shy.
In fact, at the world's prestigious film festival Navas was invited to promote the film titled "Hombre de Fe" (Man of Faith). The film is lifted from the real life story of the 32-year-old man from a remote village in Costa Rica until finally playing in the world's best club, Real Madrid, and of course, competing in the World Cup.
Navas name does not seem to be judged as a world class goalkeeper by the supporters of Real Madrid. This giant club is always associated with famous names like David de Gea or Thibaut Courtois, so the services of Navas tend to be a little forgotten.
However, this man born December 15, 1986 does not seem to care. He proved with the performance, seen from the statistics throughout the 2017/2018 season. Quoted from Squawka, Navas listed eight clean sheets and averaged 2.6 rescues per game in La Liga and Champions League. Three Champions League trophies and a biopic of himself are more than just proof. Moreover, in his own country, he has been regarded as a living legend.
Navas then became the top choice in the Costa Rica squad. He successfully embodies a dream to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Considered as an onion for being joined in the same group as Uruguay, England and Italy, Los Ticos actually came out as group winners and qualified for the next round.
Navas conceded only one goal in the group of hell, namely when his team won 3-1 over Uruguay in Fortaleza. The rest, he keeps his goal conceded when Costa Rica's 1-0 win over Italy and a 0-0 draw against England. This North American team also equaled their success in the 1990 World Cup, which qualify for the next round.
In the last 16, against Greece, Navas was selected as the man of the match after performing some extraordinary rescue in normal time. He also dismissed Theofanis Gekas' kick in the penalty shootout, a key action that passed Costa Rica into the quarter-finals for the first time.
Los Ticos even almost made the sensation of qualifying for the semifinals. Unfortunately, they were knocked out by the Dutch also on penalties. At the end of the tournament, Navas became one of three names nominated for the Golden Glove Award (2014 best goalkeeping goalkeeper) 2014. Unfortunately, he lost to Germany's Manuel Neuer.
In his country, Navas is now the most popular footballer. Little children dream of wanting to be like, a hard-working God-obsessed and humble worker. In the 2018 World Cup later, he again assumes the responsibility to scent the Costa Rican squad, at least not to be eliminated too early.
Data References
- https://news.co.cr/costa-rican-keylor-navas-best-player-concacaf/69331/
- http://www.squawka.com/players/keylor-navas/stats#performance-score#real-madrid-(current)#spanish-la-liga#23#season-2017/2018#862#all-matches#1-33#by-match
- https://www.whoscored.com/Players/65901/Show/Keylor-Navas
