Breaking down Thibaut Courtois’ match-winning saves for Real against Liverpool

Real Madrid may not have been the most talented or spectacular team in this year’s Champions League but they have been the most relentless and gritty, and it all stems from the never-say-die attitude of their goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. In every moment that his team has needed a big save, often with the game on the line and their backs up against the wall, he was there to bail his team out of trouble.

Against PSG it was his penalty stop against Lionel Messi that kept the game goalless in the last 16 first leg in Paris. In the semi-final second leg at the Bernabeu, with Manchester City holding a 5-3 advantage on aggregate, it was his late point-blank kick save with the studs of his outstretched left boot against Jack Grealish that tipped the scales in Madrid’s favour. And on Saturday night he put his Superman cape on once again, denying Liverpool nine times in total, often in spectacular fashion, to lead his team to a 1-0 victory despite Madrid having only one shot on target in the match.

In the first 20 minutes alone he made two tremendous stops, first against Mohamed Salah and then to deny Sadio Mane and keep the score 0-0 at half-time. Then in the second half he denied Salah on three more occasions as Liverpool chased the match following Vinicius Jr’s goal, the final of which came on a breakaway with less than 10 minutes left.

There are any number of saves that are worth highlighting and breaking down from Saturday night, but the three we’ll focus on here are his full-extension stop against Mane in the 21st minute, his point-blank denial against Salah at the back post in the 69th minute, and his impressive breakaway save against Salah in the 82nd minute that emphatically sealed the result for Madrid. Each of these were impressive, yet distinctly different from one another, and incredibly challenging from a technical perspective for a variety of reasons.

Courtois’ first stop against Mane in the 21st minute draws special attention to just what it is that makes him so difficult to beat when he’s at his very best.

With the ball at Mane’s feet and three Real Madrid defenders around him, the beginning of this move looks harmless. Madrid have him covered from all angles and there is seemingly no way past.

Then, in a split second, the Liverpool attacker feints to his left only to quickly change direction again and push the ball to his right and onto his strong foot into space. Suddenly he has shaken away the pressure from Casemiro and help from Dani Carvajal. This makes it a one-on-one battle between Mane and Madrid central defender Eder Militao.

In theory, Courtois wants his defenders to push the attacker outside and wide of the goal here because it 1) makes his angle a bit easier, 2) makes the area of the goal he has to cover smaller, and 3) helps make the play more predictable. Additionally, with Carvajal positioned on the outside of Militao, if Mane does take the ball outside it would hopefully then give him a chance to intercept the ball. However, that is easier said than done.

What makes Mane so difficult to defend against is his speed and quickness with the ball at his feet. His ability to keep it so close to his foot gives the illusion to the defender that they are under control and have time and space to slow him down. Then just as the defender feels comfortable and in control, Mane takes a bigger touch and explodes around them into space.

It also helps that Mane (and this Liverpool team as a whole) is so dangerous at faking to go inside only to whip the ball outside and around the defender to set himself and his team-mates up for a shot, or cross back across the face of the goal for an easy tap-in. We’ve seen it countless times from Liverpool over the past few seasons and with Luis Diaz streaking on the outside and Jordan Henderson on the back post, Salah running into the box, in addition to Mane, it was certainly an option here.

Madrid’s defenders know the options that Mane has with the ball at his feet and, rather than dive in and risk Mane beating them with a dribble, or mistime their challenge and cause a penalty, they instead elect to be a bit more passive and reactive to the play in front of them. It’s hard to blame them.

But David Alaba was attentive and kept an eye on the play unfolding in front of him in the middle of the box. Sensing the danger that Mane possessed he quickly begins to drift over to his right to get into position. Then, just as Mane takes his bigger touch towards the middle of the goal he immediately slots into position behind but slightly to the left of Militao in an attempt to block a portion of the goal for Courtois and make the shot more predictable. Those familiar with the sport of handball understand how the defender can effectively cover one post to help the keeper and make the area of the goal they have to cover significantly smaller.

Though Alaba does an admirable job of getting himself in position to impact the play, he inadvertently slides over a bit too far to his right and gets himself set/placed directly in Courtois’ line of sight. As Mane brings his right foot back to shoot, Courtois stands tall and quickly gets set in the middle of his goal while actively moving his head to his right, trying to seek out the ball. Aware that his line of sight was impeded, Courtois needed to be on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce in either direction.

Standing at 6ft 7 in, Courtois is naturally blessed with size and a long reach. But tall keepers often struggle when attempting to quickly get down to balls from closer distances inside the box because there is a dependence on their size to make saves, rather than other fundamentals of goalkeeping — notably footwork, positioning, and angle play. Though their size can make saves from time to time, in the long run it never works out for them as holes start to develop in their game, leading to weak and soft goals in moments when you would expect them to make the save. This is never a problem for Courtois because, in addition to being incredibly strong in the fundamentals of the position, he also possesses some of the best reflexes in the world. And against Mane, he needed to maximize both to make the save.

It wasn’t until the ball is roughly in line with Alba (about the distance of the penalty spot) that Courtois finally sees it clearly again. Due to his limited reaction time, Courtois resorts to using a negative step (rather than a more traditional step forward) because he no longer has the time or distance to make a step to his right. Instead, he has to tuck his right foot underneath him, predominantly pushing off with his outside and left foot towards the ball.

Though a negative step can help the goalkeeper get down to the ball quickly, it also makes it much harder to get a strong push in towards the ball. That’s why when you see a goalkeeper use the negative step it’s not uncommon to see them maneuver quickly towards the ball but never have enough power to keep it out of the net and make the save.

As the ball passes Alaba, Courtois tucks his right leg underneath him and explosively throws himself to his right with all his might, using every single inch of his gigantic frame, and tip the ball off the post, before recovering the rebound in the middle of his goal.

It’s hard to articulate how difficult it is to push off your back leg with as much power as Courtois does here to make the save. He has no business getting to the ball, not to mention with enough power to push it to safety. Losing just a few milliseconds like Courtois does here should have made the save impossible.

In the 69th minute Courtois was excellent once again, this time spectacularly keeping out a certain goal from Salah at point-blank range at the back post.

As Salah sends his initial ball back towards Henderson at the top of the box, it becomes clear from his body language that he is going to cross the ball into the penalty area first time. Almost simultaneously as Salah’s pass is heading towards Henderson, Courtois needs to survey the box and get a quick glimpse of where the Liverpool attackers are — there are only two players in the area: Diego Jota and Mane.

Once Henderson swings the ball in and it begins to dip towards the far post, it becomes clear this isn’t going to be a cross that Courtois can claim. As the ball continues towards its intended target at the back post (Jota), the Madrid keeper quickly traverses his goalmouth and gets set at his right post in anticipation of a header on target or back towards the middle of his goal.

However, the ball doesn’t go on target after all, it goes back in the direction from which it had just come. Like every opportunistic striker, Salah has already taken off towards goal anticipating the header back across it, hoping his team-mate would see him darting into the box.

With the ball looping high up in the air, Courtois turns his body, takes two quick crossover steps (moving one foot in front of the other in quick succession), and sprints across his goal, all while keeping his head and eyes focused on the ball above him. This is important because in a split-second it helps him judge the flight and trajectory of the ball while simultaneously anticipating its final destination. Had he hesitated even for just a second, it would have been a goal.

It doesn’t take long for Courtois to realise that the looping ball isn’t one that he would be able to claim outright in the air and he quickly scans the area in front of him and sees Salah all alone at the back post. With the ball still in the air above him, Courtois decides to shift his eyes away from it and onto Salah’s anticipated point of impact.

It may sound strange that a keeper would take his eyes off the ball, but it’s a big reason Courtois is able to pull off this save. By anticipating the point of impact, he allows himself to see the ball for the entirety of its flight, keeps his feet in near-continuous contact with the ground and time his approach perfectly, helping him to get set at exactly the right time to impact the play. Had he kept his eyes on the ball and attempted to react to the shot after impact, it’s unlikely he would have been able to reach out to the ball in time, even with his superb reflexes.

Though Courtois’ final save against Salah in the 82nd minute may not have been his most difficult, it was his most important.

Breakaways are all about composure, patience and timing. Having the striker barrelling towards goal with no defender between the goalkeeper and the ball can be daunting and requires the keeper to always be focused and at their best. When one-on-one with the goalkeeper, most strikers think the odds of scoring are in their favour, but Courtois often holds the upper hand.

A lot of it has to do with the technical aspects of his goalkeeping — the spot-on positioning, the superior understanding of angles. With a striker free on goal, Courtois knows where to be, having calculated the geometry with an almost scientific level of precision.

He rarely rushes out of his goalmouth chaotically. He stays cool and composed, carefully picking and analysing the correct moments to close down the spaces in front of him, narrowing the angles past him.

With Salah free on goal and Courtois positioned outside his six-yard-box, the Belgian keeper has a decision to make: close down Salah or retreat to his goal-line. The positioning of defender Ferland Mendy in relation to Salah as he chases him down is his clearest signal that the correct decision is to retreat to his line – when the attacker has pressure on his back from a defender it’s best for the goalkeeper to trust them to do what they are paid to do: defend the ball.

After a quick start and stop at the top of the box to shake off the pressure from Mendy, Salah quickly accelerates into another gear and rounds Mendy to the outside.

With Salah free on goal, Courtois has just a split second to determine what he should do next. Generally speaking, he has three options: 1) engage and spread – close the angle while throwing his arms and legs towards, or in front of the ball, 2) engage and block – close the angle with one knee up and the other leg down to prevent nutmegs, and his arms low, facing the ball, or 3) wait closer to his goal-line and react. The Athletic’s John Muller recently wrote an excellent article about this very topic if you’d like to read further on the intricacies of one-v-one situations.

If Courtois elected to engage and spread, he would have made himself vulnerable between the legs and around the arms in a crucial moment and likely exposed the very thing he was trying to protect: the goal. Had he chosen to engage and block, he never would have closed the distance between him and Salah fast enough for it to be effective. Plus, he would inadvertently make the goal bigger and making himself easier to beat. Salah being wide of the goal with a tight angle to shoot and a defender on his back was Courtois’ signal that the correct option was to remain cool, calm, and composed and get into the stalking position (knees bent, chest over his toes, and hands down at his sides) while waiting to react to the shot in front of him. Making the correct decision is one thing, getting the timing of his approach is another altogether.

Just as Salah pulls his right foot back to shoot, Courtois quickly brings his hands up ever so slightly and gets himself set. It is in the crucial moments with the game on the line when you really see what a goalkeeper is made of and, with the result of the Champions League final hanging in the balance, Courtois gets everything exactly right down to the smallest detail, allowing his greatest asset — his reflexes — to shine.

With the ball barrelling towards goal, Courtois flings out his right arm in the blink of an eye and magnificently pushes the ball around the post to safety.

As Courtois flings to his feet to celebrate his save, Alaba jumps into his arms in pure jubilation at what his goalkeeper had just pulled off. Salah falls to his knees with his head clutched in his hands and strikes the ground with both fists in frustration.

According to Opta, Courtois’ nine saves on Saturday are the most on record (since 2003-04) in a Champions League final and the most that any goalkeeper has made in the knockout stages this season. He just so happens to have the next two spots on that list as well, making eight saves against both PSG and Man City. In total, Courtois made 57 saves in the 2021-22 Champions League, 16 more than the next closest on the list (Villarreal’s Geronimo Rulli), and 43 more than Liverpool’s Alisson. Though total saves typically favour those who go furthest in the competition, the fact that he had over four times more saves than his opposite No 1 in the final speaks to just how important he’s been to Madrid’s success and how much they have relied on his heroics down the stretch in the Champions League.

His exceptional play has largely been the story of much of Madrid’s 2021-22 season. With the possible exception of Karim Benzema, Courtois has been the most important player in Carlo Ancelotti’s team.

It’s surprising that Courtois is not mentioned more often in conversations about the world’s best goalkeepers. He was eighth in the voting for the Yashin Trophy for the best goalkeeper at the 2021 Ballon d’Or awards and was not named among the three finalists for FIFA’s The Best award. British football magazine FourFourTwo even omitted him in a feature listing their top 10 goalkeepers in the world just two months ago. Maybe his performance in the final is the moment that everyone finally recognizes him for what he rightfully is — one of the very best goalkeepers in the world.