By Chris Wright
With a doff of the cap to Mr Abbiati’s exertions last night, here’s ten more fine, flying, clawing, sprawling goalkeeping double saves to feast your peepers uponst…
1. Jim Montgomery, SUNDERLAND vs Leeds
Regarded by gentlemanly scholars as the greatest double save to have ever graced the game, so a fitting place to start. Coming during Sunderland’s 1-0 win over Leeds in the 1973 FA Cup final, Montgomery pounces to foil first Trevor Cherry then Peter Lorimer and preserve his sides’ fragile lead…
2. Gregory Coupet, Barcelona vs LYON
After flinging himself headlong to keep a looping pass-back from his centre-half out of the net with his head, Coupet somehow also manages to save Rivaldo’s follow-up into the bargain…
3. Chris Tardiff, OXFORD UNITED vs Shrewsbury Town
Point blank…
4. Edwin van der Sar, Chelsea vs MANCHESTER UNITED
Techincally a triple save, Van der Sar foils Chelsea not once, not twice, but thrice – and all without getting up off his backside…
5. Tim Wiese, Eintracht Frankfurt vs WERDER BREMEN, 2010
Who’s this Wiese guy, eh?
6. Fernando Muslera, Argentina vs URUGUAY
Behold, the importance of making oneself ‘big’…
7. Jerzy Dudek, AC Milan vs LIVERPOOL
The Champions League final in 2005 was unequivocally Dudek’s finest night’s work in a Liverpool shirt. After Liverpool had pulled themselves back from the brink to level the score at 3-3, the Pole pulled of an incredible, instinctive double save to deny Andriy Shevchenko from nabbing a late winner. Dudek then gave Shevchenko the old ‘Grobelaar wobbly legs’ in the shoot-out and saved his sudden death penalty too, thus winning Liverpool the big one…
8. Julio Cesar, INTER MILAN vs Roma
Another triple-whammy…
9. Wojciech Sczszesny, Liverpool vs ARSENAL
Yes, Deadly Dirk’s rebound effort was naff, but Szczczzzzszccczzzesny still had a lot of ground to make up…
10. Victor Valdes – BARCELONA vs Villarreal
Having deflected Giuseppe Rossi’s one-on-one effort onto the crossbar, Valdes miraculously manages to get back on his feet and claw the rebound away from the Italian forward on the line with the goal yawning in front of him…
Any we’ve missed (there are a few we couldn’t find videos of; Peter Schmeichel vs Barcelona, Shay Given vs Tottenham, Jussi Jaaskelainen vs can’t quite remember), give us a nudge…