Manuel Neuer has been one of the best goalkeepers in recent years. But by the time and his older age, this 32-year goalkeeper’s appearance has got further away from the perfect word.
In the match against Liverpool some time ago, Manuel, who was getting lackluster, even made Sadio Mane able to score quite a unique goal. The Kop’s first goal really made a lot of eyes wide open.
Right at the 26th minute, Mane moved quickly to leave Rafinha to receive a shocking pass that Virgil van Dijk launched from the Liverpool defense zone. Mane’s movement made the Bayern defense structure destroyed so that Manuel Neuer rushed to leave his goal.
When the ball had landed perfectly, Mane faced very close to Neuer at the end of the penalty box. Interestingly, Mane did not panic when he faced this German goalkeeper. He deflected the ball back with his left foot, before turning his body at a considerable distance.
This action made Neuer, Rafinha and Niklas Sule who were nearby had frozen like a mannequin for a second. Knowing it, Mane took the ball again and turned a little before finally kicking the ball to score a goal.
The Liverpool goalkeeper, Alisson, who turned out to appear as brilliant as him, made as if Neuer’s big-name looked mediocre.
In the era of modern football, the name of Neuer has started to be abandoned. He was not as brilliant as before. His fame in the Bundesliga even began to collapse with the brilliance of Roman Burki under the Borussia Dortmund crossbar.
According to both movement statistics in each game, Neuer is not the most ‘brave’ goalkeeper. Burki recorded more frequent saves and passes outside the penalty area. In the current era of football, Neuer’s creativity in keeping the goal is not as good as a goalkeeper who started to look brilliant like Alisson Beker, Ederson Moraes, even Roman Burki.
His performance tends to decrease and is feasible to give up its duties to the younger and of course creative talent.
The most striking thing was when he failed to keep the goal of the German national team in the 2018 World Cup title. He was not even able to bring the Panzer Team away from the group phase. Many people regretted the fact that Low prefers Neuer as the goalkeeper. Even though he had just recovered from an injury and there was the name of a talented goalkeeper who played for FC Barcelona, Ter Stegen.
Strangely enough, the German coach will still use him in the upcoming 2020 European Cup. Even though his appearance is getting worse, Low still opened up opportunities to let Neuer play in the 2020 European Cup.
But this 58-year-old coach also did not dismiss the possibility of making Barcelona’s flagship goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen as Germany’s number one goalkeeper in the European championship.
“If nothing extraordinary happens, Neuer will be number 1 to the European Cup,”
“I don’t want to override Marc-Andre’s performance. He is also a world class now. Marc has improved tremendously, but we plan with Manu as No. 1 to 2020. “
Meanwhile, German legend, Lothar Matthaeus, suggested Joachim Loew reserved Manuel Neuer. According to him, it was the time for Germany to entrust the main goalkeeper to Marc Andre Ter Stegen. Matthaeus thought that the long injury suffered by Neuer made his performance worsened. Despite recovering and returning to play with Bayern Munich this season, he said the goalkeeper’s best ability was not yet maximal.
“Manuel Neuer is currently not in his best form after suffering a serious injury. He has not returned to the performance that made him the best goalkeeper in the world four times,” Matthaeus said as quoted by The Goal.
With his worse performance, is it still appropriate for Neuer to be called as one of the best goalkeepers in the world?
