Vicente Guaita exclusive interview: ‘I’d never conceded seven – it reminded me of playing Barcelona’

Vicente Guaita achieved a career-first last Saturday: sadly, it is not one the Crystal Palace goalkeeper will recall with anything other than anguish. “I had never conceded seven goals in a match before,” he says, sounding as if he is now very much in the acceptance stage of the grieving process. 

It is scant consolation to Guaita that none of the strikes rattled past him by an inspired Liverpool at Selhurst Park could be attributed to him, or that the visitors’ ruthlessness in attack bordered on the freakish: they scored with seven of their eight shots on target. As a goalkeeper, and one rapidly emerging as one of the best in the Premier League, his pride has been bruised. He has only experienced that level of humiliation once before – in 2015 when his Getafe side were torn asunder at the Nou Camp by Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. But even then, Barca opted to declare at 6-0.

“It reminded me of that time, for sure,” he says. “I was talking about it on Saturday with friends. They came once: goal. Again: goal. Just like Liverpool did.”

At least the famed goalkeepers’ union offered some crumbs of comfort. 

“I was speaking to Adrian [Liverpool’s reserve goalkeeper] afterwards and he told me it was not so bad – that they had also conceded seven against Aston Villa. That it didn’t matter where they shot from: it was always a goal, even if there had been three goalkeepers. Sometimes a team has one of these perfect days. But we know we were not good enough.”

It feels unfair that Guaita will be remembered as the goalkeeper who played in Palace’s heaviest ever home league defeat. His star has been in continual ascent since he moved to south London on a free transfer in 2018 and it is not for nothing that Palace fans routinely refer to him as the best Spanish goalkeeper in England: his performances have certainly been more consistent than those of David de Gea at Manchester United, or Kepa Arrizabalaga, now dropped, at Chelsea. 

For a showcase of his skills, simply seek out the highlights of Palace’s recent 1-1 draw with Tottenham, when Guaita made two of the finest saves of the season – one a reaction plunging stop to his left to deny Harry Kane’s close-range header, the other a flying fingertip over the bar from an Eric Dier free-kick – to secure a point. 

Guaita works closely with Palace’s goalkeeping coach Dean Kiely, who delivers a detailed dossier on the attacking players that he will be facing before each game – “What style of strikers do they have, if they come into the area a lot, if they cross the ball, if they are strong in the second ball or in the corners” – but ultimately it is his natural ability which marks him out.  

Not that goalkeeping was his first love when growing up in the small city of Torrent, close to Valencia on Spain’s east coast. 

“As a child I played as a forward, I liked to score goals like everyone else. At that moment I was looking at Ronaldo, I had his Inter shirt. But they put me as a goalkeeper, perhaps because my dad was too.”

Guaita’s father, Francisco, had been on the books at Valencia only for his football career to be curtailed by a stint of national service. He passed away at the age of just 46 in 2011 after suffering a heart attack. 

“They always compared us at Valencia,” Guaita reveals. “I don’t know if I want my son to be a goalkeeper now – there are always those comparisons.”

Guaita did break into the senior team at Valencia, playing 76 games in six years before joining Getafe in 2014 and helping them win back their place in La Liga. His signing by Palace was considered something of a coup given his reputation in his own country, a point quickly confirmed by his performances, which had none of the brittleness displayed by De Gea and Arizzabalaga in their early outings in the Premier League. He has spoken to them both regularly, ever eager to acquire different perspectives on the goalkeeper’s art. 

“The game here was a change,” he insists. “In Spain it is more technical, in England it is  more physical. And they focus on working much more in the gym here: in Spain they usually train more on the pitch.

“At first it was a bit of a challenge and I had to wait for my chance. But I started playing on December 13, 2018 and since then I have been in 69 Premier League games – I know the numbers so well because I came up with the challenge of playing 100 games in England.”

Guaita certainly seems settled in his adopted country. He has a house in Croydon, a short drive from Palace’s Beckenham training ground, and domestic life is chaotically happy, with children aged six, four and two occupying his every moment not spent on a football pitch. 

“The oldest is starting to play football now,” he says. “I usually go with them to the training ground when I have the day off. They can play and run around there. I can’t go for a walk downtown with them. We’ve been to a couple of museums and they almost had to close them! They never stop. When you don’t fight one, you fight another.”

That said, being away from his extended family back in Spain – particularly in the current climate – is hard. 

“I miss them very much. In the first couple of years, I have had a lot of flexibility. I have been able to travel home when we have had some free time. Here in England they give you more freedom, they know that it is important you can get together with your family. But now, with the tests you need to pass, the quarantine and the closure of London, you can’t do much.”

Guaita is not entertaining thoughts of heading home for good in the short term, although his future is not certain. His current contract expires in June and although Palace are keen to extend it, no deal has yet been agreed and, at 33, Guaita knows that if he wishes to test himself at a higher level, he may be running out of time. 

“I’m happy at Crystal Palace but anyone would like to play in Europe because we all want more – or to go to the national team,” he says. “I haven’t lost hope on that.”

In the short term, there is the small matter of rebuilding Palace’s confidence in Boxing Day’s trip to Aston Villa. Hodgson’s side appear to have reached a cross-roads in their season: a win in the west midlands, and thoughts can turn to pushing towards the top eight; defeat, and the winter suddenly looks rather bleak.  Guaita puts it more succinctly: “We need to secure safety as soon as possible and then try to sneak into the top 10.”

Achieve that, and last Saturday’s events may quickly be consigned to history.