David de Gea: best goalkeeper in the world
Initially emerging from the Atletico Madrid Youth Academy, David de Gea shines out at Manchester United and is already considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world. This is the story of a player who started out as a young hero and is looking for the definitive consecration.
The beginnings of David de Gea
At just 19 years of age, David de Gea debuted with Atletico at the end of September 2009. He played against the Porto in the Champions League. The match ended with a hard defeat, but nothing stopped him.
A few days later, he began to win the love of his audience. In the 2-1 victory against Zaragoza at home, he saved a penalty: the funny thing is that he gave the penalty away!
In May 2010 he played in the UEFA Europa League final, which his team won against Fulham. However, he didn’t have the same luck in the Copa del Rey final against Sevilla; his club, with him in the goal, lost 2-0.
At that time, it was obvious that he had plenty of skill to succeed. This was confirmed constantly and in August he saved a penalty from Diego Milito to win the UEFA Supercup against Inter Milan.
The big jump
With just over fifty matches in the international squad, Manchester United signed David de Gea in 2011-12. He became the most expensive player in the history of the Premier League, costing 20 million euros.
Although during the first season in the Old Trafford goal, he alternated with Anders Lindegaard, he has since established himself as main goalkeeper.
These years were somewhat irregular for Manchester. On the one hand, he won the Premier in 2012-13 and also the Community Shield, which he had already achieved a year earlier. But, in Europe, the team wasn’t doing so well. In fact, he was constantly disappointed until the consecration in the Europa League 2016-17. The goalkeeper, of course, was instrumental in this achievement.
David de Gea, in any case, never abandoned his ascending performance. Today he’s considered one of the best goalkeepers on the planet, along with Manuel Neuer, André Ter Stegen, Gianluigi Buffon and Keylor Navas, among others.
These good performances placed him in sight of European giants. In 2015, he almost joined Real Madrid but the documentation arrived too late and he didn’t sign. Maybe next summer?
Qualities of David de Gea
If we said that he’s considered to be one of the best goalkeepers in the world, it seems redundant to say that David de Gea fulfills the requirements of a ‘number 1’.
These are some of his main qualities:
- Flying: there are few saves where the ball is seen going from one post to the other through the air. If you’re looking for spectacular stops, in David de Gea you will undoubtedly find a good protagonist.
- Reflections: there are also many de Gea actions where the reaction time is practically nil. With his feet or his hands, the Spaniard always finds the tenth of a second necessary to react and avoid a rival celebration with his reflexes. There are plenty of examples of these first two points, in the final of the European Super Cup 2017.
- Saver: a distinctive feature of the great goalkeepers is that they appear at the right moments when they are most needed. De Gea not only does this but sometimes gives the feeling that he wins the matches by himself. It happened during the difficult times at United and also now, with the most entrenched team. Exaggerated? No way. During this match against Arsenal, he made 14 saves!
The five best saves of David de Gea
- Lacazette/Sánchez: in the ‘classic’ against Arsenal he broke the record for stops in a Premier League match; David de Gea had an impressive double reaction. First, with his right hand before a low shot by Alexandre Lacazette. Then, in the rebound with his foot and pure reflections-he thwarted the occasion before the imminent conversion of Alexis Sánchez.
- Marcos Asensio: in the aforementioned final against Real Madrid in August 2017, Asensio had a shot at the goal and although the shot was focused, the intervention by David de Gea was fabulous.
- Jesé Rodríguez: in September, Jesé shot from the left side of the box. This was saved by David de Gea who was placed less than five meters away. He made the save when the fans were already shouting the goal. It was incredible!
- Diogo Gonçalves: against Benfica, David de Gea showed his superpowers. With a monumental stretch to his left, he deflected a strong shot by changing hands that went straight to the far post.
- Joel Matip: another extraordinary reaction. The Liverpool player connected with a left winger, and when everything pointed to a goal, David de Gea and his left foot appeared.
The horizon looks promising for the 27-year-old goalkeeper, who will be the goalkeeper for the Spanish national team in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Also, if he’s not in Manchester, he’ll be elsewhere, but he’ll have the opportunity to seriously compete for even bigger things in Europe.
