Germany’s Next Top Goalie

The Bundesliga season has only entered its third match day, but already the race for the Number 1 jersey in South Africa has heated up again. Timo Hildebrand has declared his intention to compete for a place in South Africa, despite Joachim Löw’s insistence that only Robert Enke, Tim Wiese, René Adler, and Manuel Neuer are in contention. Tim Wiese has perhaps made it easier on his competition by curiously declaring his intention not to be called up for the upcoming qualifier against Azerbaijan and friendly against South Africa. He stated that he did not want to be jeered by the whistles of Leverkusen and Hannover fans. At current Bundesliga leaders Schalke, Felix Magath has struck out at Löw for not nominating Neuer for the previous away fixture to Azerbaijan. Meanwhile Löw has stated that all four goalkeepers in contention have the common weakness of not being authoritative enough at a world-class level in the penalty box.

For once I completely agree with Löw. Firstly, Hildebrand is out for good. He was never been great and he has no case for the DFB again after his public outbursts before the Euros. Unfortunately, all of our current goalies make me nervous one way or another. Enke gets scored on day in and day out. It’s nice that he has lots of practice, but psychologically this can be dangerous at a big event. Adler is young and as demonstrated in the friendly against England he simply does not have the authority in the box to pummel his opponents. Neuer similarly, as seen in the U-21 Euros this summer, has an aversion to confidently put the ball out of danger from crosses and set-pieces. Finally, there is Wiese. His antics have brought him a lot of detractors, yet he is the only goalie out of the four in European competition this season. Despite his quick reflexes he makes the occasional costly error. Furthermore if he can’t handle whistles how is he going to deal with the vuvuzelas? The bottom line is Wiese will be there in South Africa as a goalkeeper. Let’s just hope Neuer can move to Manchester United and claim two Number 1 jerseys before June.