Celebrating the masters of the last line of defence — the goalkeepers who changed the game forever
Goalkeepers are football's most unique and least understood heroes. While strikers receive the glory and midfielders draw the tactical admiration, it is often the goalkeeper who determines whether a team wins or loses. A great goalkeeper can be worth 15-20 points per season. Here are the players who defined this specialised, demanding and underappreciated role.
Lev Yashin is simply the greatest goalkeeper in football history. The only goalkeeper ever to win the Ballon d'Or (1963), he played for Dynamo Moscow for his entire career (1950-1970) and won 5 Soviet League titles and 3 Soviet Cups. Yashin famously claimed to have saved over 150 penalties and kept more than 270 clean sheets in approximately 800 professional matches.
Known as the "Black Spider" for his all-black kit and seemingly supernatural reach, Yashin revolutionised goalkeeping. He was the first goalkeeper to command his penalty area, organise his defence vocally and come off his line to claim crosses. He played at four consecutive World Cups (1958, 1962, 1966, 1970) and led the Soviet Union to a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics and the inaugural European Championship in 1960.
Peter Schmeichel is widely regarded as the greatest Premier League goalkeeper of all time. Standing 6ft 4in and possessing extraordinary reflexes for his size, Schmeichel was the cornerstone of Manchester United's dominance from 1991 to 1999. He won 5 Premier League titles, 3 FA Cups, the Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup with United.
His most famous moment came in the 1999 Champions League final, when he lifted the trophy as captain after leading United to an astonishing comeback against Bayern Munich. In international football, he led Denmark to a miraculous Euro 1992 victory — their only major tournament triumph. Denmark had qualified as late replacements after Yugoslavia were excluded.
Gianluigi Buffon played top-level professional football from 1995 to 2023 — a career spanning 28 years. He joined Juventus in 2001 for a then-world-record fee for a goalkeeper (€53m) and became the bedrock of Italian and European football's finest defensive unit for two decades. Buffon won 9 Serie A titles, 4 Coppa Italia trophies and reached the Champions League final twice (losing both times — 2003 and 2015).
He won the World Cup with Italy in 2006, conceding just 2 goals in 7 matches and keeping clean sheets throughout the knockout stages. His longevity is staggering — he played his last Serie B match aged 45 in 2023.
Manuel Neuer revolutionised goalkeeping in the 2010s by perfecting the "sweeper-keeper" role — acting as an extra outfield defender by coming far off his line to intercept through balls and build play with his feet. At the 2014 World Cup, Neuer's performances — particularly his defensive interventions outside the penalty area — earned him the Golden Glove award and helped Germany win the tournament.
With Bayern Munich, Neuer has won 10 Bundesliga titles, 2 Champions League titles and numerous domestic cups. He was Ballon d'Or runner-up in 2014, finishing third — the highest any goalkeeper had finished since Yashin.
Gordon Banks is best remembered for one save — his stop from Pelé's header at the 1970 World Cup, which Pelé himself called the greatest save he ever saw. But Banks was England's first-choice goalkeeper for a decade and was central to their 1966 World Cup triumph, when England kept a clean sheet in every knockout match.
Banks won the World Cup, 6 League Cup medals with Leicester City and Stoke City, and was voted FIFA Goalkeeper of the Year 6 consecutive times (1966-1971). His career ended prematurely following a car accident in 1972 that cost him the sight in his right eye.
Test your knowledge of football's greatest shot-stoppers on Goalasso!
Play Now →