Rui Patricio exchanged jersey with Petr Cech

Watch video interview with Rui Patricio after Czech Republic - Portugal quarterfinal game. Portugal won 0:1 and became the first semifinalist.

Translation:

Our goal was to advance to the semi-finals. We made it, the atmosphere is very good and thanks for everyone for that. Thanks to the victory everyone is happy and everyone had worked equally. Congratulations are owed to the whole group.

How does he feel about the victory over Petr Cech, who has been his idol for many years

He had congratulated us and in the end I exchanged jersey with him. I'm very proud, playing against him, because he is my idol.

Champions of Euro? First we have to think about the semi-final. It's going to be complicated. It's a dream of every player who is here on Euro to win the thropy.

Euro 2012: Czech Republic - Poland 1-0 Petr Cech picspam

FA Cup - Chelsea - Everton 1:1 (pen 3:4) 19, Everton wins penalty shoot-out!

When I started to watch this game my first thought was 'I want the penalty shoot-out and I want Everton to win'. And surprisingly it did happen.

Both teams wasted so many good situations in the regular time! It was much better in the additional time, the game became faster. But I'm not complaining, because it was extremely pleasant game to watch for a goalkeepers' fan. Petr Cech made 10 saves, Tim Howard 8. What's more they both saved a penalty each.

Lampard scored in 104' but sometimes 1:0 is not enough to win. Like in this match. Baines scored an amazing goal from a free kick just outside the penalty area, one minute before the end of the additional time. It was literally their last chance to draw the game.

Too bad for Ashley Cole to miss the last penalty for Chelsea. Phil Nevill scored for Everton and they were through.

Great to see Everton celebrating in front of their fans.

As for Chelsea 'the penalty curse' affected them again. It was the seventh penalty shoot-out lost in a row...

World Cup 2006 Goalkeeper Saves video

This is just great. Another video made by YT user LCTrussell1992Media, showing the best saves of World Cup 2006.

So many great saves of Ricardo! It was his best tournament for sure. Wish Portugal had made to the final.

Liked also Buffon's saves. Amazing double save in 0:38-0:43. And Artur Boruc. Remember him especially from the very dramatic match against Germany. He proteced Polish goal sucessfully for 90 minutes. In 91' Germany scored...

Goalkeepers in the video: Roberto Abbondanzieri (Argentinia), Fabien Barthez (France), Aldo Bobadilla (Paraguay), Artur Boruc (Poland), Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Petr Cech (Czech Republic), Nelson Dida (Brazil), Shaka Hislop (Tinidad and Tobago), Dragoslav Jevrić (Serbia and Montenegro), Oliver Kahn (Germany), Kasey Keller (USA), Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi (Japan), Jens Lehmann (Germany), Ricardo (Portugal), Paul Robinson (England), Oswaldo Sánchez (Mexico), Mark Schwarzer (Australia), Edwin Van Der Sar (The Netherlands), Lee Woon-Jae (South Korea).

IFFHS: The World‘s best Goalkeeper of the First Decade (2001-2010)

Gianluigi Buffon was named by IFFHS the best goalkeeper of the decade. Iker Casillas is on the second place, while Petr Cech is third. The two first goalies can switch places by the end of the year, as annual votes from 2010 will be added to the total value of the points.

The ranking is based on:
- annual vote by different jurors (countires) on three top places (3 points to 1 point) in early years; in later years on four top places (4 points to 1 point),
- IFFHS annual ranking of the goalkeepers; points were given for the top twenty places (20 points for the first place, 19 for the second etc. to 1 point for the 20th).

	Goalkeeper	Country	Points (2001-2010)
1.	Gianluigi Buffon	Italy	170
2.	Iker Casillas	Spain	157
3.	Petr Čech	Czech Republic	120
4.	Oliver Kahn	Germany	99
5.	Edwin van der Sar	Netherlands	92
6.	Nélson de Jesus e Silva "Dida"	Brazil	90
7.	Jens Lehmann	Germany	72
8.	Roberto Carlos Abbondanzieri	Argentina	68
9.	Fabien Barthez	France	55
10.	Rogério Ceni	Brazil	53
11.	Francesco Toldo	Italy	52
12.	José Manuel Reina	Spain	50
13.	Victor Valdes	Spain	49
14.	Júlio César Soãres Espíndola	Brazil	44
15.	Jerzy Dudek	Poland	42
16.	Igor Akinfeev	Russia	41
17.	Santiago Cañizares	Spain	35
18.	Grégory Coupet	France	28
19.	Rüştü Reçber	Turkey	27
20.	José Luis Félix Chilavert	Paraguay	26
21.	José Francisco Cevallos	Ecuador	25
	Timothy Matthew Howard	USA	25
23.	Andonios Nikopolidis	Greece	24
24.	René Adler	Germany	23
25.	Bradlay Howard Friedel	USA	21
26.	Oscar Eduardo Córdoba	Colombia	19
27.	Andrés Palop	Spain	17
	Francisco Guillermo Ochoa	Mexico	17
	Justo Wilmar Villar	Paraguay	17
	Marcos Roberto Silveira Reis	Brazil	17
31.	Ricardo Alexandre Martins Soares Pereira	Portugal	16
	Vítor Manuel Martins Baía	Portugal	16
33.	Heurelho da Silva Gomes	Brazil	15
	Timo Hildebrand	Germany	15
35.	Juan Carlos Henao	Colombia	13
	Woon-Jae Lee	South Korea	13
37.	Oswaldo Sánchez	Mexico	12
38.	Ruslan Nigmatullin	Russia	11
39.	Andreas Isaksson	Sweden	10
	Carlo Cudicini	Italy	10
	Doniéber Alexander Marangon "Doni"	Brazil	10
	Hugo Lloris	France	10
	Ivan Pellizzoli	Italy	10
	Óscar Pérez	Mexico	10
	Peter Schmeichel	Denmark	10
	Samir Handanović	Slovenia	10
	Séamus John James Given	Ireland	10
48.	Magnus Hedman	Sweden	8
	Mark Schwarzer	Australia	8
	Pascal Zuberbühler	Switzerland	8
	Ricardo Tavarelli	Paraguay	8
52.	Nigel Martyn	England	7
	Sergey Ovchinnikov	Russia	7
	Agustín Julio	Colombia	6
	David Seaman	England	6
	Roberto Óscar Bonano	Argentina	6
	Tony Mario Sylva	Senegal	6
	Vyacheslav Malafeev	Russia	6
59.	Artur Boruc	Poland	5
	Carlos Fernando Navarro Montoya	Argentina	5
	Fabián Carini	Uruguay	5
	Sander Westerveld	Netherlands	5
	Sebastián Saja	Argentina	5
64.	Germán Adrian Burgos	Argentina	4
	José María Buljabasich	Argentina	4
	Manuel Rivero	Spain	4
67.	Thomas Sørensen	Denmark	3
68.	Grégory Wimbée	France	2
69.	Carlos Idriss Kameni	Cameroon	1

Source: http://www.iffhs.de/

Conclusions:

- I'm almost sure Iker is going to outrun Gigi, as Buffon lost half of the year due to an injury,
- interesting to see that Ricardo and Vitor Baia occupy the same place,
- only two Polish goalkeepers made to the list - Jerzy Dudek and Artur Boruc,
- the fact that El Hadary of Egypt is completely missed in this ranking suprises me the most
- really curious if any African goalkeepers are going to make on the list after the final vote.

Penalties at the World Cup

On Friday three of the best goalkeepers: Oliver Kahn, Petr Cech and Sergio Goycochea took a part in Adidas's press conference. One of the topic there was saving penalties. It's merely a luck? A lottery? Not at all!

Fragment of Andrew Warshaw's article:

Of the 198 penalties in World Cup history, 160 of them have been converted - excluding shootouts. The significance of well-prepared goalkeepers is never more important than at this stage of the tournament. "It's in the knockout stages where having a good goalkeeper will be most important," said Cech. "It's early days and we'll see what will happen. But this is where keepers will be most important. You need to keep your nerve. In shootouts, if you move too early or if your if your decision-making is wrong, you will never save a kick. You need to be mentally stronger than the taker."

But surely penalty shootouts are merely a case of Russian roulette? Not so, says Goycochea. "I used to tell people that it was all down to luck but in fact a good goalkeeper in shootsouts needs talent, skill, strength in the legs and a cool head. I don't like it when I hear people say a shootout is just a lottery."

Kahn, whose shootout heroics won the 2001 Champions League for Bayern Munich against Valencia, also talked up the virtues of thorough preparation. "It is a psychological game between the two of you which is often invisible to the fans. You can read a lot from the kicker's body language, about whether he's afraid.

"You can do a lot with eye contact and you can also irritate the taker with your body language. In a shootout the only one who can lose is the kicker, never the goalkeeper. The goalkeepers here so far have not yet been really tested or had too many opportunities to show their talent."

Read full story here.

Champions League, Inter vs. Chelsea

Was worried yesterday when I read about Julio Cesar's car accident. Fortunately he seems to be well except for a few bruises.

Inter - Chelsea was a fast match, pleasant to watch. Wonder if Inter make to the quarter-final. Everything is going to be decided in the second leg. Happy with the result 2:1, but it's not a clear lead.

Julio Cesar was quite busy during the whole match. A lot of saves, that's what I like. Don't think that the lost goal should be put on his account but well... the commentators always know better...

A few photos.







Bruised face doesn't look good.



But his saves during the game were fine.





Celebrating after Inter scored first goal in 3'.

On the contrary it was not good match for Petr Cech. He suffered an injury in the second half, seems it was something with his knee. Is it the end of the season for him?



Deputy Portuguese goalkeeper Hilário had to come in. Can't say anything about his performance, really, because he didn't have too much work to do in the goal.

Tommorow: Juve - Ajax. Looking forward to watch Buffon in action.