I read the sad news of Gordon Banks passing away today, he was undoubtedly a great goalkeeper, famous for being the England goalkeeper in 1966 and for the save he made against Pele in Mexico 1970. There have also been other great goalkeepers among them Zamora, Jennings, Yashin in fact too many to name here.
But I am not getting into who is the best as that is something that can never be measured, I am going to talk about one of the greatest performances by a goalkeeper in a very important game. I am talking about the European Champion Clubs Cup (predecessor to the UEFA Champions League), this was the 1986 final, Barcelona against Steaua Bucharest the Romanian champion played at Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Sevilla, Spain. Of course all bets were for Barcelona winning.
That day unfortunately I travelled to Tegucigalpa so I wasn't able to see the game and since there was no internet I started tuning TV channels until I saw the result Steaua 2 Barcelona 0. The funny thing is I then learned that the game finished 0-0 including thirty minutes over time, and Steaua won on penalties.
So of course I had to learn what happened a 2-0 penalty shootout is not common especially between a team like Barcelona and another European champion. Turns out it was decided by the goalkeepers, Urruticoechea the Barcelona keeper stopped two penalty shots, but Helmuth Duckadam the Romanian goalkeeper stopped four penalties, an incredible achievement especially when this also meant the European championship for Romania, the only time they have won this I think.
I think this is one of the most outstanding games a goalkeeper has ever had, maybe Duckadam was not the best goalkeeper in the world but damn did he achieve something that day. I paste a link to a Youtube video of this performance not a direct link, if you want to see it you have to copy the link, I think the language is Romanian.
