Silly question, but how can a dressing room not believe a save that has just happened right in front of it?
I read the Sporza piece on the 7.32 train, notebook open. Mike Penders, Chelsea’s Belgian goalkeeper, did not concede against Manchester United. In the last minutes, a shot from Mbeumo: he tips it away with his fingertips, and it hits the crossbar. After the match, he said: “I want a replay, because they didn’t believe me in the dressing room.”
I opened a tab. Hypothesis one: his teammates were looking elsewhere. Hypothesis two: they saw it, but they want proof. Hypothesis three, the most troubling: he didn’t see it either. Because he said so, and I always cite Sporza: “I didn’t see the ball leave, but I still managed to get my fingers to it.”
So the only direct witness to the save is the crossbar. And it doesn’t talk.
I’m told that’s normal, that a keeper reacts before he sees. Fine, but what does that mean? In basketball, when you block a shot, you know it, the whole arena knows it, and the blocker mimes it for three possessions. I looked.
There is some background. In his debut in Chelsea’s goal, against Tottenham, he made a mistake, and the British press called his intervention “catastrophic”. Sporza writes that he then picked up the thread of his season, and that this save is the illustration. I understand the replay better: for the Tottenham moment, there was already footage.
You don’t have to believe it, you have to see it. And I’ve seen it a hundred times since yesterday. That’s historic. I’m weighing my words.
I still have one question for my tab: in a dressing room, who decides that a save is believed? Nobody could tell me. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: Sporza.
