It wasn't the best football match you're ever going to see but it did have a moment or two of brilliance. Usually when you think of Football and brilliance and Real Madrid one tends to think immediately of one of their star players they buy every year who are commonly known as Galacticos. For example Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, as much as I loathe his diving antics, is indubitably one of the most talented players in the world and as he cost Madrid something in excess of $100,000,000.00 should be considered to be a Galactico.
But no, this brilliance came in the form of their home grown progeny of awesome: goalkeeper, Iker Casillas. He's perhaps the best keeper in the world right now, and this is why:
This may not look like much as the striker shooting is only a few yards away from the goal line when he hits it, but watch it again and take note of a couple of points: First Casillas is on the opposite side of the goal, beyond the post, when the ball is crossed. Then not only does he manage to get all the way over to be in a position to make a save, but he also makes the save before the striker takes his shot.
The anticipation, agility and speed to make this save is possessed by maybe two or three other goal keepers in the world and even then the odds of getting in the way of the ball is at best one in three. Goalkeeping is, in many ways more important than any other position, especially when preventing an ironclad goal, like Casillas did here, is sometimes more important than scoring at the other end of the pitch.
