That's a Keeper!

Today we're going to look at a lineage of local Latin American goalkeepers who transformed the role and whose wild, unhinged antics terrified and delighted their own fans along the way. I'm namedo Vila, and you're listening to the best soccer podcast in the world. It's got ses with them, but it's still Christiano Ronaldo. Yes, yes, in the Italian teams wonderful that is never sin. In nineteen twelve, the Football Association limited goalkeepers to using their hands inside of their

own boxes, rather than anywhere in their own halves. Hungarian Goula Grossage was among the first to come off his line consistently. He won a gold medal with Hungary at the nineteen fifty two Summer Epics. A postle socco of lev Yashin and Mariel Garriso built on the idea of the sweeper keeper. Leve Yashin saved over a hundred penalties and had a cigarette and a shot before the game to get in the right mindset. Legendary Argentina everywhere played stopper.

Gariso was the first to wear gloves. The goalkeeper's role back then was purely just stop the boy if it came to him and get it back up the pitch. If you see clips of these old games from the fifties, from the sixties, moist keepers that they were linely limbed themselves to grabbing hold of the ball with two hands, just taking their time and then launching it back up the pitch, not really caring who it landed with. And Carrisso was different. He was a guy who did leave

his line. He would, you know, as the position suggests, sweep up behind the defense if if it was needed, he could play with his fate. This is Daniel Edwards, a soccer journalist based in Buenos Aires. Gariso said a record for appearances for Riad, played on the famed Lamkina team and won six domestic titles with his club. He was the first goalie to trick a striker by faking an offside call. His birthday became the Day of the Goalkeeper.

In Argentina. His audacity of dribbling out past opposing players caught on, including with a young Colombian named or As the coach who discovered and champion the Heat that would call him a local Heat that was born in a slum in Median and grew up playing under the floodlights paid for by Pablo Escobar. He played as a striker throughout his youth until one day, when the team's goalkeeper was unavailable, the coach gave eat other gloves. He was

just seemed a reluctant goalkeeper, right. He was a guy that was so comfortable getting out of his goal and dribbling out the pitch. And he was a great keeper and his I'm right, but you must just just seemed to be bored of the row. So he would he would just try this out, righteous stuff, and there's a free kick at Akta to get across very very quickly. And day he scored seven goals in his debut season, which earned him a transfer. Fueled by cocaine money, Nasional flourished,

eventually winning the the final went to penalties. He has stopped four and scored his own as Nacionale became the first Colombian team to win South America's biggest club competition. But that team, you know, that Li Nacional team has just gone into history is one of the greatest South American club teams that ever was his antics between the post it definitely announced him as as someone to watch and side. This guy Francisco Maturan of the culture that

age he comes in around nine nine. He says, look, we're not going to beat Argentina Brazil by fouling them, by spoiling. You know, we're Colombians. We love, we love to have fun. We love to just show you our three sells. So we're going to do that on the pitch. We we're talking about it is an orthodox style. I

don't think I've ever seen anything as pure confidential. I mean, of course, Sita with all of his antics, all of his all of his free spirit in the girl, that's where it all started, and it just filtered through the entire team from there. In his international debut, kept a clean sheet against the Soviet Union for a hundred and twenty minutes, saving two penalties in scoring the decisive spot kick.

Just a very colorful figure on and off the pitch and definitely one of these guys who in the nineties, which was you know, especially early nineties are fairly bleak time for football, where a lot of teams weren't really proposing anything. The game was dubbed by violence, dubbed by very negative play. It must be the best play on

the fiber show tram. And then you have a team like Columbia who just came up in the World Cup, and it was like, well, you can play a bit different, you can play with a bit of joy in your heart. This is really good to see. At the time, columb Ba was thrilling with m bossing games from under his bouncing blonde fro. Columbia made it to the knockout rounds of the World Cup, beating the UAE and drawing with Germany coach. The team was built on Aita's peculiar style

of play. He was and still is kind of kind of an idol and an icon and representative of not just you know, Colombia and Colombian soccer, but of a of a time and an era, you know, in in a different way. I know, we put them, you know, like Carlos Falderrama in in a very different way than Colos walder Rama, but equally as impactful and impressionable, if you will. This is Alexei Lawless, a defender for the U. S national team in the nineties and now a puned

it for Fox Soccer. As coach Francisco put it quote, with Renee acting as a sweeper, we effectively have eleven outfield players allowed the whole team to push higher up the field. In Totalita conceded just fifty four goals in sixty eight games for Columbia, less than one per game. Was very popular because of his tendency to go out of his penalty orange dribble rounds four of five or six. But then the World Cup he famously lost the motto or in the last sixteen against Cameroon in extra time,

and that's why Columbia went out so spanished. Eventually. This is Michael Jakin, a freelance soccer journalist. So Cameroon in the round of sixteen. Let's talk about it, Yeah, it was. It was pretty much deadlocked. Like a lot of the games at the ninety nine World Cup was a gat receives the boat and just besides, as he had done for so many times, to dribble it out and see what I can do. And he came up against against Cameroon and lost the boll and gifted the go to

Roger millib and that was it for Columbia. They couldn't get back. And one of the most enjoyable teams are that World Cup when in the Colombian doll is a keeper who lives on a knife inch. He's an exhibitionist, a great taker of risks. Millers possessed him the get and read face Miller another dog and another dogs. Miller's danced with the corner flag became famous. Heat that called his turnover quote a mistake as big as a house comb.

That was an outstanding team. That was a team that could have won the World Cup in ninety four and maybe and he was the Gita being a bit of a fool against Cameroon which cost him both goals. This is a senior writer for ESPN. You know your eye probably could have scored one of those two goals when you get when you get gifted them, you know the way he did, and he was totally out of position for the other goal as well, which people often forget. So yeah, I don't. I don't see Gita as this

positive romantic figure. Neither did Colombia. Four years later, he that wasn't at the nineteen ninety four woke up because he done. He just got out of prison for reasons that I think on the Gita would would really be able to explain. He managed to get caught up in kidnapping kis in Colombia. Pabloscoad had escaped his mountaintop prison and was on the run. His bank accounts were frozen. He needed money, so he went about it the old

fashioned way, kidnapping. He abducted the daughter of his former partner turned rival Cats Molina. Molina asked to Eat that to act as an intermediary to transfer the money. He had some personal link, so he got involved in this kidnapping chaise. This wasn't eat as brightest moment, but you try turning down a drug kingpin when he per suddenly asks for a favor. He that carried the three thousand dollars in cash handed it over and idly signed autographs

for the street kids who recognized him. While he waited, the girl was delivered to his side without him seeing where she appeared from. The victim eventually got home. Cifely A Gab allegedly received a very has some sum of money for his involvement, and eventually the Columbian authorities caught up with him and said, now you're complicit in this kidnapping. So I spent almost a year I think in prison, got out just before the World Cup. Obviously he had

n't plied for a year. He was in pretty terrible shipes I. He was forced to watch from him and Oscar Corba went in instead as heat that puts it. He went to jail because he tried to save a teenage girl. He called his motives humanitarian. He was never tried and was released after seven months. He sued the ball at that prison when they tried to cut his hair. His lawyer argued that his hair was quote essential to his personality, his performance, in his image, and he's got

lots of it. This is James Richardson hosted the Totally Football Show. People knew who Renny Agreeto was because of the hair He had this big kind of you won't remember the hairbaar bunch. It was a short lived Hannah Barbera cartoon about somewhere out there, someone's going, yeah, I know the hair by bunch. Oh, I understand what he means about. When they agreed his hair. It was that

kind of thing. For that person, you get it, But for the rest of you, it was kind of like a big, kind of like bubble perm kind of frieze. He paired his hair do with extravagant jerseys and huge puffed up sleeves. Colorful, I guess would be the best way to describe a flamboyant electric colors on his shirt, flying hair down to his down to his shoulders, the mustache. He was only five nine, which is really short for

a goalie. He was also a larger than life character, and he inhabited that character with you know, just incredible, beautiful, arrogant in the way that he went about it. With the Eta regaining fitness at home, Columbia imploded in tried to down there for you. That's course, Papa, I'm the own goal. I'm the United States reached Columbia scored an owned goal, and was later murdered back in Midian a tragic story for another episode. At the time, Columbia was

mired deep in cartel violence. If you know of theta, it's for something he did. After that, he gave the world a different view of Columbia. Wembley Stadium, England versus Columbia. Have you ever seen anything black in your life from a cokeeper? But it was terrible, terrible friendly. Remember well, I really really touched stuff night. Neither of the teams

we're really looking for a goal. And it kind of goes back to what I was saying before about heat just all my seeming board of football bord of being a goalkeeper at times. So he decided to make the game noteworthy on his on It was a misplaced cross come shop from Jamie red Nap just flighted into his direction. He that could easily have catched it, but he decided to show the world his scorpion kick. It was incredible. Basically, he jumped forward into a handstand and kicked the ball

with his heels while upside down. The world had never seen anything like it, which spawns millions of copycats. Everyone wanted to do the scorpion kick on the playground. I think even a friend of mine managed to dislocate his shoulder because he tried it. So I think there was probably a lot of emergency rooms in England at that time for kids and pediatricians that weren't very happy with the guitar. He says it quote put Columbia on the map. Definitely.

He gave a lot of people well to talk about after that Scorpion kid because Columbia hadn't had a good World Cup the year before, so that was really the narrative behind Columbia. Then the Gate comes along and and just changes the story. You know, He's it's the country that invented the schoolping kick. It's one of the most iconic soccer highlights of all time. Your grandma has seen it. That lived off the fame of the scorpion kick for

the rest of his career. He recreated it in an ad for Frutino, a drink sort of like kool Aid. Most of his fifty one career goals came towards the end of his playing days, when he signed for lower league clubs, largely as a publicity stunt. In two thousand four, he tested positive for cocaine, entered rehab, and didn't play again for three years. In that time, he had plastic surgery on a reality TV show They Tell Lies, his nose job, his chin implant, skin Peel Island trim, and liposuction.

He had been voted Columbia's ugliest icon. He said quote, I'm tired of being ugly, Rena. I want to be handsome. Really. Afterward he announced that body wise he was perfect. He played off and on until he was forty four, retiring in two thousand and ten from a second division team in Colombian coffee Country. But let's get back to World Cup for a moment. It was the lowest scoring a World Cup in history and something had to be done, so FIFA came up with a new law to help

keep the game moving, the back pass rule. It was a way just to spade up the game. FIFA knew that football wasn't a bit of trouble and the back pass was a huge part of that because you could waste minutes and minutes on end by giving the ball, you know, back to the keeper. It was just a very very ugly, unpleasant tactic that calls the back pass rule.

I does law. After the rule change, goalkeepers now are expected to do things that Iata pioneered the goalkeepers heads to play better with our feet, and their role changed and they became more involved in building the play from behind. More about what happened next after the break with the Ether absent for World Cup ninety four, the first World Cup after the back pass rule was implemented, the role of fluorescent flamboyant goalkeeper felt at the diminutive Mexican campus.

And to just say, this guy campus come out with this technical color goalkeeper shirt and just looking so supremely confident because he always seemed to have this look on this west side. Yeah, I know what I'm doing. The whole tel is just gonna follow me and it's uh and it's going to be fine. We obviously just thought it was hilarious that this guy was coming out in a pink and yellow show drawn in a group with

boring Ireland and Italy. Mexican go was a breath of fresh air, and that minty fresh breath came in the form of their goalkeeper, Jorge Campos, sparkled as Mexico beat Ireland and drew with eventual finalists Italy. You know, in the knockout rounds, Mexico came up against Bulgaria, each team had a player sent off. In one of the wildest

games of the tournament, it went to penalties. Campos saved the first, but his teammates managed to miss three in a row and Mexico crashed house shame put by compos FIFA listed him as the world's third best goalkeeper before that World Cup. Two years later, Nike featured him in their epic Good Versus Evil ad along with all of the best players in the world, Eric Cantada, Luis Figo, Ronaldo and Paolo Maldi. He was one of my favorite

goalkeepers because he was very very short. I mean he was the shortest player of the Mexican team and his magnificent colorful outfits, and he also loved to dribble. Looks like a guita. But he was shorter than low Miss. You know that. It's incredible. Campus is listed at five ft six, though he disputes that he used to stand on top of a soccer ball in the back row of team photos just to appear taller. So just how tall was he? I mean he would maybe come up

to my nipple. Alexei Lalas played against him many times over the years, probably and then maybe a little a little taller with um the hair because at that point, you know, back then he was really poofing it out and you know, having it high. So yeah, he got a couple of extra inches with the hair there. So not diminutive, I would say, but but certainly not imposing in terms of his actual height, personality and color and

all that. Now that's a whole another story. Campos was a surfer, horseback rider, and sometimes goalkeeper from a beach resort town on the Pacific coast of Mexico, where Campos grew up on a ranch and spent every weekend in the waves. He was say a special character as well. You know, he came from Acapulco. Soften is the most popular spot, and he was brilliant sofa. The sand taught me endurance and reflexes, he said. Surfing taught me balance

and elasticity. It also taught him fearlessness. He said that there was more pressure surfing than in soccer. When you go surfing, you do have to watch out for sharks, after all, like Ghita. All throughout his youth career, compos played as a forward. In fact, in his debut season in Mexico with Booms. He found his progress to the first team blocked by an established veteran keeper, so Compos asked to play as a striker, and he managed to score fourteen goals, a team high by He was the

starting goalkeeper for both Bomas and Mexico. He won the Mexican League that year. He spent the majority of his career in goal, but certainly not all of it. He famously played both goalkeeper and striker in some games. The first was for Atlante, his next club. His team was trailing to Cruizassul, so the coach subbed on the backup goalkeeper and moved Compos into the attack. He scored the equalizer his best goal, dustier kick, after launching himself through

the air. Throughout his career, Compos alternated between wearing the number one and the number nine. One in goal, he'd wear an outfield jersey underneath his goldie shirt just in case. Now let's talk about those jerseys. If you know of Compos, it's because of the uniform. Compos designed them himself, many and homage to surfer gear in his hometown. They were Neon da Gelos, psychedelic colored things with a three quarter

sleeve and huge armholes. You're aesthetic and the way that you looked, and for lack of a better word, your costume that you wore was important. And he certainly recognized that he was playing a part, and therefore the costume that he put on was as important as actually, you know, the lines that he that he gave and the and the performance that he gave. This wasn't just something that

he pulled off the top of his head. It was comfortable for him, but it was strategic, and he understood entertainment. He understood performance, He understood the stage. He understood the connection between the audience and the stage and that character that you were playing, and he, you know, he went about cultivating. Compos was so tied to this image that it nearly cost him a spot in the World Cup.

You see, Compos produced his own jerseys. When the Mexican Federation made a deal with Umbro to supply their uniforms, Compos refused to wear them. After a standoff, they reached a compromise. Compos kept designing and producing his own jerseys, but he would sew the Umbro label on them. Off the field, he wore sandals and shorts. He inhaled Haganda's ice cream. Everything about him was unorthodox, especially his style of play. He would frequently dribble the ball deep into

the opposition half with fearless nonchalance. Sometimes he doesn't get enough credit for, you know, really being ahead of his time, fearless when it came to how he played. And I think in today's game, where we put so much emphasis on playing out of the back and the ability for a goalkeeper to be good with their feet, some of the stuff that defenders and goalkeepers do in today's game

we would never be caught dead doing. And yet Jorge Kampos was doing that and more at a time when it wasn't cool or de jure to to kind of do it. So he was a man ahead of his time. Compos seemed to revel in the risk he'd make a save and launched straight up the field. World Cup winning Argentine coach says he called him quote a prototype of the twenty one century goalkeeper. Remember this is the nineties. Goalkeepers are just now figuring out how to deal with

the ball without picking it up. But what people forget is once a keeper picks up the ball, you know he's either going to punt it and then comes or he's going to roll it out to somebody. Compos chose a third option. We know, it's soccer where it's very difficult to score, and so more often than not it ends up with, you know, being in the goalkeeper's hands. But in that moment when everybody kind of turns around and adjusts, the goalkeeper actually has the best view of

what is going on. Jorge compos would recognize and then go about exploiting both the sheer numbers and the practical overflow of numbers. In that half, it was starting a counter attack. So it was it was feeding off of a number of things, the confusion, the lapse in mentality that normally happens uh, and then the novelty of it. Compos won Gold Cups with Mexico. Alexei grimly recalls the ninety three Gold Cup final when his USA team got thrashed four nil. Particular loss in the Gold Cup final.

You know, I was young. I think that was my first time playing in a steca and so just the awe of playing in a s teca and then we got ours kicked. I mean that's a game where Horkae just sat in the back, uh, And you know, smoked a cigarette and drank a coffee, basically because we didn't We certainly weren't doing anything to challenge him up there, and we didn't see that, you know, that that marauding type of ork because it wasn't necessary, and he was smart.

He recognized when it was necessary and when it when it wasn't. In Major League Soccer made Compost its first international signing. His face was everywhere TV, commercials, magazines, on a mural in Hollywood and Vine. His signing bonus was a new Ferrari. Compost would play doubleheaders Mexico then Galaxy appearances back to back in the same day in the same stadium, or he'd play a game in the Mexican League, jump on a plane and play an MLS twenty four

hours later. Fans on either side of the border adored him. He was seemingly always moving through a throng of autograph seekers. The signing was a huge hit. Eventually, Compost was traded to the Chicago Fire, a new team. In season, he alternated time with Zach Thornton, a six ft three two pound American whose father was a tight end for the University of Kentucky. For the playoffs, coach Bob Bradley went with Thornton. Compos left the country to play for Bumas

and never returned to MLS. Thornton and the Fire won the MLS Cup. That will do it a new champion from Major Rack Soccer their expansion Fire. They throw the champion the Fire roll Spree. That same year, Compos in Mexico again exited in the round of sixteen in the World Cup Germany in front fair half, getting the better of Laura I'm camp Bos could do nothing again. The

squad became known as the Ya So Close generation. Overall, he made a hundred and twenty nine appearances for Mexico, three of them as a striker, and was their biggest star at the time. He was definitely one of their He was ahead of his time as far as personal branding and playing out of the back. But how good was he really? To be honest, Hardy Compost was an undersized goalkeeper who was technical and like a lot of players you know, played a different position as well, and

sometimes enjoyed playing that other position. But it was fundamentally I thought a gimmick and I talked a lot about the character that they play. It never overshadowed their ability, so there was never a question as to whether they were good soccer players. As a matter of fact, you can you can argue that they were great soccer players, but this other part of them, in my view and my eyes, only made them greater than what they were.

Or as Campos put it, quote, if you look good, you feel good, and if you feel good, you play good. More about what happened next after the break. Campos scored over thirty goals in his career, but next in the line of local Latin American goalkeepers surpassed them both. That's right, Luis Felix. He was a behemoth six ft two and over two hundred pounds, and Chilla Verte is another character entirely.

I think when it came to, uh, you know, stopping gods on a one on one, there weren't many people better because he would just come out at you and put that huge frame right in front and it wasn't easy to pay him from there. She was frightening goalkeeper with a bulldog shot, who loves to take a penalties and three kicks, didn't really play outside of his box. He scored well over sixty goals in his career. He's

the first goalkeeper to score a hat trick. His first goal for Paraguay came deep in stoppage time against Colombia. Our Paliita was in gold. They shared a warm hug afterward. L Once scored from his own half. I don't know if you've ever seen the one he scored for from a half white line. Just an absolutely brilliant effort. Vella has got a completely innocuous free kick just behind the half white line. No one could ever imagine anything was going to come from it. Chilliver comes charging up from

his goal and almost about breaking stride. Let's rip and the bull flies miles up in the air and falls just inside the river net. He caught the river keeper that day completely off guard. Um and it's one that always shows up even now on our clip shows. She LeVert started taking free kicks early in his career as a novelty, and then practice hours, hours and hours after training, taking eighty to a hundred and twenty free kicks a day until quote, they gave me the job for real.

In his career, Levet won league titles in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. He won a league cup in France. FIFA named him the best goalkeeper in the world three times in the late nineties, but he was arguably at his best while on Villas had its field. In his decade there, she won four league titles in the Internationally, Chile took Paraguay into the knockout rounds of the World Cup twice, further than the small nation had ever gone before. Just water that iv in Chilivert. He had a busy day

and did chilver real lion for Paraguay. He got into the World Cup for the first time they in years and years and years, and it's just established himself as a as a national hero. As he done less. France knocked him out in on the way to the title with the first golden Golden World Cup history. So focused by Chilbert. This baul to flex pampa defender as you'll see here, can use his quick footwork and a full extention shut you see here to deflect the ball wide.

One of many tings and eventual finalists. Germany knocked him out with the late goal in two thousand and two, Louisville, that's the winner, show me with two minutes to go. Loisville has quot Germany a culture Finals she have. Its aim was to become the first goalkeeper to score in a World Cup, and he came pretty close. Finally, Luis Chilliver and they're standing in very parts of the stadium now in anticipation of this. Here's the shot. Say everything

about Chilver was larger than life. Brazil coach Felipisco lad he said he was loaded down with four fat Yeah, he was just a bulldog essentially, as he used to wear on his chest for Velis. He was just such an intimidating figure, such a huge, huge man to have behind you. They sold bulldog ch levered t shirts. The Paraguayan Football League once held the competition to find the bulldog that looked most like the one on the jersey.

I honestly don't know how he got it. I mean, the logical answer would be that he looks quite a lot like a bulldog. He's this huge guy in massive shoulders, stout neck and big heads. I definitely the physical similarities of that, and the bulldog just snowed out of his jersey. I think the best way I could describe it would be Spike from Tom and Jerry, but even more medicine. It was definitely in a as we said with Vigita, he knew what his image was, then he loved to

play up to it. Let it said. I created an image for me with this face. It was much easier to play the bad guy. He certainly had the rap sheet to back it up. He punched Faustino Asparilla in the nose in a World Cup qualifier. He also picked up four suspended jail sentences in his life, one for hitting a ball boy, one for attacking a physio, one for forging documents in a contract dispute, and one in a defamation lawsuit. He called the South American Football Confederation

president corrupt. His hardheadedness also came across and his resolute morals. He insisted that the Paraguay players donate a portion of the World Cup bonuses to the staff, and he boycotted Medica because he thought the money used to host it would be better spent feeding the children. Hold a big copa America America title. She loved it was a very different type of player than Agita and campus he didn't dribble out of the box. Besides his set piece goals.

She his contributions to the attack came in the form of the South Americans called the big kick. He could pick out teammates with long punts. Already a decade after the back pass rule, the role was changing. So that's what we saw, you know, starting with about in the nine four World Cup, the guy and did stop to

become more ripen. There was a little bit of an ive lap I think with keepers, you know, taking time to learn these new skills that they needed, why as a result of not being able to pick up the ball so much. But once they got there, it definitely changed a game and and it started moving a bit more quickly Nowadays, Manuel Noyer, Huge, Larie Edison and Allison could all probably play in midfield. What do you believe it said the goal keeper has saved you know, football

as a guy in which is always avoved. Teams have more to gain from the goalkeeper pushing up to join the other ten than they have to lose from the times when a goalie gets caught on the ball and

turns it over. That position has evolved. There were times where that player wasn't being used to effect and was just kind of sitting back there and waiting to save the ball, as opposed to adding an additional player that if he or she is good enough with their feet, can actually act as you know, that sweeper or that last line of defense, or that more importantly, the first

line of offense coming out of the back. And so I think it, while we didn't put a name to it and we didn't necessarily think about it in those ways that we do now, that was what was happening. And I think you need, ultimately goalkeepers who are able to envision themselves as being more than just shot stoppers, and more than just your traditional person in and there, and and that by no way means that shot stopping and saving the ball shouldn't be your priority, but you

can do so much more. The goalkeeper is a little less lonesome now. It took a few men of questionable sanity and the global rule change, but the modern goalkeeper has finally joined the pack. The Best Soccer Podcast in the World is a production of Exiled Content Studios in partnership with My Hearts Michael Podcast Network, and is hosted by me Nandolvilla, produced by Ana and zach Lee Rigg, written by Zach Lee Rigg, Production assistance by Stella Emmett.

Our executive producers are Isaac Lee, Rose Reed and myself named Avila. Our executive producers at I Heart are Gasel Bancees and ar Lean Santana. Sound designed by Uglo Mendoza are Awesome. Theme song is by lu j Special thanks to all the voices who participated in this episode Daniel Edwards, Alexei Lawless, Michael Jakin, Gabrielle mar Kodi, and James Richardson. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M