It seems that we’re getting a major mistake by a top goalkeeper every week in LaLiga. If you watched this week’s game you know what I’m talking about. You also probably know that he’s a favorite on this page. Luckily for him the goal didn’t affect the outcome of the match. So what we got was a good laugh from the players. That happens when you’re one of the top goalkeepers in the world, and you make a mistake. There are a couple of guys though that are making a return to the list. I have to be honest it kind of concerns me because people are going to think that I’m biased against this particular player. He keeps making the same mistake though on what should be a routine play for a LaLiga goalkeeper. That’s why he keeps finding himself in the goalkeeper mistakes LaLiga edition week after week!
The weather for some LaLiga games got bad. I don’t think we could say that it got as bad as it did in the Premier League. As was the case in England though, I didn’t feel that we had too many mistakes that we could attribute to the weather. I do anticipate though that we will start seeing more of those as the season goes on. This week finding mistakes from LaLiga goalkeepers was not hard. That’s kind of concerning actually! Anyway, let’s get to the goalkeeper mistakes LaLiga goalkeepers made in week 15.
5. Gerónimo Rulli vs Barcelona – Mostly Not His Fault
To be fair here the biggest mistake was made by the defender. Usually when there’s a striker nearby these types of pass back plays are always a bad idea. In general, they tend to be an unnecessary luxury. Really what you stand to gain from the play when it goes well isn’t all that great to essentially risk it all. For the most part this is a play that you should want to avoid. The reason why I picked this play for the top 5 even with so many clear errors this week was because I didn’t love Rulli’s positioning. He’s really far off his line to begin with, and you can argue that’s why the defender thinks it’s a great idea to take the chance. He could take a couple of steps back and get himself in a better position when he sees the header is horrible.
Having said all of this, I do think the effort in the 1v1 is amazing. He holds up very well. Ultimately though you have to give credit to Memphis who ends up keeping the ball tied to his foot. It’s actually the man that makes the first mistake who sees the ball go through his legs in the last shot. So definitely, if we’re going to be throwing blame around here he has a higher responsibility for this goal.
4. Luis Maximiano – He Could’ve Done A Couple of Things Better
This is another one of those goals that chalking up all of the responsibility to the goalkeeper would be unfair. Even to the defenders though. I think that it’s a great effort play by Williams. Who is an amazing player, when he wants to be. I feel that he’s kind of stalled his career at this point. It’s a bit of a shame because he has all of the tools to be a world-class player. When it comes to Maximiano he’s proven he has talent. There are a couple of things though that he would do well to clean up. Particularly if he doesn’t want to keep finding himself on these lists!
With this play I just don’t love the positioning. In the first part of the play he comes out and just a simple touch by Williams takes him out of the play. The way that he’s coming out though is just completely indecisive. In the second part of the play we get more of the same. He’s kind of lost on the play, and he comes back towards goal sliding without any regard for what he wants to do. At least that’s what it seems. He just slides in, and ultimately the ball hits him and goes in, in what we could call an unfortunate turn of events. It is helped though by the fact that he never makes a strong play on the ball in the entire play.
3. Matias Dituro vs Alaves – Keep Making The Same Mistakes
This one bothered me in all of the wrong ways again. Last week Dituro made a similar play where you just see him try and go after a ball like a person who’s never played the position in their life. Granted this play was a bit more contested than the other one that he said. You don’t even have to look at it that closely to realize it’s the same mistake. If you’re going to come out and try to make a play on this ball you need to be more decisive. This is a perfect play to try and punch it away and no one is going to say anything because the play is contested. So you should be able to go ahead and punch the ball clear. No, he decides that he wants to come out with his hands in a weird position in front of his face.
The purpose of these articles is for younger goalkeepers to learn, and not for me to vent about personnel decisions by LaLiga teams. Plus, with Dituro I already talked about how I wasn’t a fan of these types of teams picking up lower tier talent. Therefore, there’s no point in going down that road again. As a teaching point, this is a ball you need to be more decisive with if you want to be able to affect the trajectory. Would that mean that you’re going to take a hit in this case? Probably, but he took the hit and conceded the goal so that’s worse.
Yassine Bounou “Bono” vs Real Madrid – There Goes The Game
Bono has proven to be one of the most consistent goalkeepers in all of LaLiga. Granted it can be argued that he’s not a special goalkeeper like Oblak or Ter Stegen, but without a doubt he’s a solid piece in that Sevilla squad. Sadly, this week an error of his opened the door for a Real Madrid team that up until that point in the match was arguably being dominated by Sevilla. What went wrong? This is just a simple case of overconfidence. The shot is coming in from reasonably far out. So the goalkeeper has enough time to move towards the ball. From what we can see from his face it just feels like he thought he had an easy clean catch. That wasn’t the case though at all.
I was trying to see if he ever loses sight of the ball. Sometimes you feel like the catch is so easy that you start looking up the field to see what you’re going to do with it once you catch it, and you just miss it. At least from my perspective he doesn’t lose sight of the ball. It just slips. These are the types of plays that just happen. I don’t want to come out and say that he shouldn’t have tried to catch that ball. In reality, I feel that a goalkeeper of his caliber should be able to make this type of play. Things didn’t work out though. Even top goalkeepers make mistakes.
Goalkeeper Mistakes LaLiga Matchday 15 Error of The Week
Jan Oblak vs Cadiz – It Just Happens
We’re a bit Oblak biased on this page having the Slovenian top the list of the best goalkeepers that we made a while back. In this particular case though there’s not much to say. This is a massive error, and he deserves to top the list this week. There was one element that may have saved him from topping the list this week. That was, the fact that the goal really didn’t mean anything. Atlético de Madrid still won the game. They essentially got the goal back on the next play with the fourth goal of the match. While Oblak was still standing there sort of wondering what in the world happened.
What in the world happened? Not to show out some of the Oblak bias that was being referenced earlier. But, dealing with that particular shot is not as easy as it could look. People who have been in the situation will probably agree. Without this having to mean that Oblak didn’t make a major mistake. The cross is coming in off of a deflection. So the spin on the ball is all over the place. From what I can see he’s getting some cold feet as he’s getting close to the far post. Ultimately he ends up throwing his hands up without any type of regard for where the ball is. I don’t think the problem was that he lost track of the ball. He didn’t feel comfortable where he was in regard to the post. This combination though led to a major mistake!
