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Copa: Alisson Becker is the world's most expensive goalkeeper - Sport
- On Sunday evening, Brazil play Peru for the title at the Copa América.
- If the Seleção be successful, goalkeeper Alisson Becker would have a not inconsiderable share. As in the Champions League victory with Liverpool.
- So far, the most expensive goalkeeper in the world has denied all matches of the Copa to zero.
In the second half of the Copa America semi-final between Brazil and Argentina, there was a scene that was perhaps crucial to the game, but hardly played a role afterwards. Argentina had awarded a free-kick, Argentina captain Lionel Messi, five-time world footballer and also gifted free-kick, played against Alisson Becker, Brazil goalkeeper. Head to head.
The duel had already happened before: a few weeks ago at Camp Nou, in the semi-final first leg of the Champions League between Messis FC Barcelona and Alissons FC Liverpool. Messi struck the spot from about 30 meters away; Allison stretched in vain. This time Messi shot from 20 meters, at the most, and aimed the ball back to where he is barely reachable for a goalkeeper: in the goal angle.
But this time Allison did not fly through the gate, and certainly not in vain. He took a few steps to the side and held the ball with both hands. As if he did not just want to prevent a goal, but to deliver a statement. As if he wanted to prove the theory that there are no untenable balls, but only good or bad position play. A gate is not that big if you measure 1.97 meters like Alisson Becker.
The legend of the incompetent Brazilian goalkeeper is long refuted
Yes, he held the ball in a straightforward manner, "the easy way", as he put it after the match that gave his team a 2-0 win and the Copa América finals. On Sunday Brazil plays in the Maracanã Stadium of Rio de Janeiro against Peru for the title. With Alisson Becker in goal, and thus with a guarantee on the line, which raises Brazil's role as a favorite.
For decades, Brazil was a country that lived with the stigma of producing great footballers but no good goalkeepers. This is also the Maracanã, in which Brazil returns on Sunday after six years of abstinence (the dreamed-up World Cup final 2014 was known to be missed by a 1-7 draw against Germany in Belo Horizonte in the semifinals). After the last game of the 1950 World Cup, Barbosa, the then goalkeeper, the responsibility for the 2-1 victory Uruguay charged, Alcides Ghiggia overcame him with a shot in the short corner. "In Brazil, the maximum sentence is 30 years, but I pay 40 years for a crime I did not commit," Barbosa said decades later, he died lonely and broken.
The legend of the incompetent Brazilian goalkeeper has long been disproved, but with Alisson the respect for keepers from the country of the five-time world champion has reached new heights. This is also reflected in the indicators of the overheated market. In the summer of 2018, Liverpool transferred 73 million euros to Alisson's then-club AS Roma - a record prize for a goalkeeper. The money was somewhat looser after the lost Champions League final of Kiev 2018 at Liverpool; against Real Madrid they had lost the final in the Ukrainian capital also because Allison's German predecessor Loris Karius had missed the 1: 3. A year later, at the Champions League final in Madrid, Allison was in the gate of Liverpool. That he was the one who took away the trophy on the Madrid final night had something emblematic about it. Because Alisson had held in the final against Tottenham Hotspur outstanding. As before against Barça and now at the Copa América.