History Of Goalkeeping.

In contemporary football, the goalkeeper is the odd man out. the goalkeeper wears a recognizable colour  outfit. they are also the only person to handle the ball with their bare hands.

In its era before the modern times, football was often tied to religious or local ritual. according to this text, the scoring of goals takes on the quality of the impregnation and the fertilisation. those who are responsible in preventing this happening is then mythologically aligned with the force of famine and disaster.

Absolutely yes! The goalkeeper must bare the role of a scapegoat. goalkeepers get the blames more often compare to other outfield players. it is inevitable to know ad see that goalkeepers are the last man in defence; thus being the ultimate blame for last minute equalisers and devastating loss. the failure of a goalkeeper who career and lives could shatter by a single moment or a crushing defeat. Barbosa, Brazil's keeper in the cataclysmic loss at home in the 1950 World Cup final was cursed, then shunned as a clown, a fool and a failure.

 

http://www.balls.ie/football/moacir-barbosa/85411

Goalkeepers were at last able to emerge as more than the fall guy. The advent of diving for the ball in the late 19th century made the keeper athletic and offered great opportunities for flamboyance and heroism. Others traditions of play embraced the stoic, solid unflappability of Edwardian masculinity. In the increasingly large shape of William "Fatty" Foulkes, the goalkeeper had become a celebrity.In the mid-Victorian public school, where the rules and mores of modern football were emerging, this was precisely the role the goalkeeper was cast in. The manly, intrepid and spirited would always opt for the bustle of forward play and the glory of scoring goals; the "funk-sticks" were relegated to protecting the goal. It was only in 1871 that goalkeepers actually appeared in the rules of the game and another couple of decades before they had to wear a distinctive shirt. They were able to handle the ball in the whole of their half but were vulnerable to charging and barging by the opposition.

Wilson's appetite for the goalkeeper is insatiable, covering the stories and meanings of the position from Russia to Brazil, from Cameroon to Italy. He asks why Scottish goalkeepers have acquired such a bad reputation and why Americans such a good one. His account of the sweeper-keeper in the second half of the 20th century - and the reintegration of the goalkeeper into the flow of the team - is outlined with both great tactical acumen and a sharp appreciation of the complex calculus of risk involved. Goalkeepers that come off their line to play with the team may occasionally concede an embarrassing goal to mistakes or a lob, but on balance prevent more goals than they let in.

The calculus of uncertainty lies at the heart of goalkeeping's other great dilemma – the penalty. This dual between taker and keeper not only decides many championships but has provided rich intellectual pickings for modernist cinema and game theory, which have explored existential despair and the limits of rational choice through the spot kick. In this respect, Wilson offers a picture of the goalkeeper as an outsider, but also more of an everyman that you might think.

                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                              By-David Goldblatt