II. — GOALKEEPERS
— Gabriel Hanot | 14/06/1924 —

The 24 or 25 goalkeepers in the Olympic football tournament can be divided into three classes: bad, average and good.

The bad ones were those of Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Egypt, Belgium, Poland. Their mistakes consisted of not knowing how to block the ball, losing all composure in the face of an attack, positioning themselves in such a way that the shot caught them on the wrong foot, letting the ball pass between the legs or hands. Egyptian goalkeeper Kamel gave the impression of being paralyzed and his clumsiness was responsible for the goals scored by the Swedes. Belgian goalkeeper De Bie continually worked out of time. He left his goal when he should have stayed there; he stayed there when he should have rushed to meet the ball. He also happened to run at the Scandinavians in two stages, after stopping for a moment during his momentum. He was the most unfortunate of men and lost all self-control, all experience, all reflexes. In his panic, he reduced himself to the level of a beginner, who lacks insight, a sense of appreciation of distances and for whom the ball is an extraordinarily capricious animal. The Polish goalkeeper Wiśniewski, tall and solid, always seemed, in front of the Hungarians, to catch the ball by accident, without doing it on purpose. The mischievous leather sphere went so far as to bounce off him, to avoid entering the goal.

The average goalkeepers were Biri for Hungary, Sloup and Hochmann for Czechoslovakia, Chayriguès for France. None of them committed any gross crime; neither did any form an insurmountable barrier. Chayriguès provided one of the worst matches of his brilliant career against the Uruguayans. Scarone's first shot passed near his right arm, whose hand, as if struck by paralysis, remained closed. If it had opened, the goal would have been avoided. It should be said that our national goalkeeper was injured by a kick in the ribs, while diving towards the ball, but he had previously blocked it, then let it slip into his goal, a ball that he normally never lets go. Between the Chayriguès of France-Uruguay and that of France-Belgium, there was a difference in nature.

If we leave aside the goalkeepers of Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Ireland, who did neither good nor bad. We come to those who behaved very honorably. Vrđuka, from Yongoslavia, Lass from Esthonia, were the best players of their nation. Douglas, from the United States, demonstrated incomparable brilliance and acrobatic virtuosity against Uruguay. He doesn't have the classic style of European goalkeepers; he defends and promotes his goal in his own way, which is original, unexpected, but effective. That's the main thing. Uruguay, in Mazali, had little to do and it is difficult to define his exact value. However, he seemed daring, predisposed to leaving his goal lightly and juggling the ball among the group of his opponents. Such a tendency undoubtedly comes from his passion for basketball, in which he became a master.

There remain the Italian de Prà, the Swiss Pulver, the Dutch Van der Maulen, the Swede Lindberg, the Spaniard Zamora. These belong to the great class of goalkeepers.