The second goalkeeper is a peculiar species. Second goalkeeper is known and, indeed, it is. But the second goalkeeper also has his ego. That’s why, while feeling genuine and sincere sorrow for the injury of his friend and fellowHe thinks that the best option to replace him is him. Because he is a footballer and footballers are like that. “And why can’t I do it just as well?” But the second p
ortero arrives at the locker room still hurting by the image of the starting goalkeeper leaving on a stretcher and reads the cell phone.
And he realizes that he is not going to stop being second goalkeeper.
Being second goalkeeper is the closest thing to the ‘friendzone’ there is in football. You are working every day, putting on a good face and making it clear that if something happens one day you are there.
And when the starter is out of play, the club decides to go to the market while the second goalkeeper realizes that he will always be second goalkeeper
. That there has been an opportunity to stop being one, but that not even the calendar has been on their side. “If this had happened within a month…”, think the second goalkeeper. Then the club would not have had so many options and he would have been promoted to first goalkeeper.
With an asterisk, but first goalkeeper
. When
Madrid signed Lunin in 2018
, the plan was clear. That he would go out on loan at the beginning, that he would live with the corresponding starting goalkeeper later and that, when the time came, he would take over the goalkeeper. Five years later, having followed the steps, the outcome has not been as expected. Something hasn’t gone right.
Or nothing has gone right.
The assignments to Legans and Valladolid were a disaster
and only in Oviedo did it find continuity. Since he stayed in Madrid’s first team he has barely had the opportunities offered to other second goalkeepers and
only a short injury to Courtois last season
It allowed him to really feel like the guardian of the Madrid goal. This summer has been more outside than inside,
with the club and the coach trying to sign another substitute for Courtois
and opening the exit door to a Lunin who has remained maintaining a small flame of hope that his moment was going to arrive. Finally (and unfortunately), that opportunity came. But not for those.
It will be necessary to see if Kepa can scratch more minutes than the very few that Courtois received.
