| An
accident prone time for goalkeepers, but none more so than Israel's Davidovich
in the match against Spain. He got hurt four times before being carried off at
the half time interval. Hope his insurance covers it. Our top man
Cañizares was in goal at the other end, and he now seems to have tied up
the number one jersey for the national side with a superb performance in that
match and also against Bosnia. He was one of only six of our top keepers in
action this weekend, with many managers giving a game to the stand-ins with
nothing at stake at this late stage in the season. Bilbao's Aranzubia came in
for his first game of the season after playing for Spain's under 21 side
midweek, replacing regular keeper Lafuente. That left Oviedo's Esteban as the
only player to have not lost a minute of play in the whole league season,
little consolation as his side has the third worst record of "goals against" in
the first division. Other keepers who got a game this weekend were Espanyol's
Argensó, Osasuna's Sanzol, Kike of Alavés and Cicovic of Las
Palmas, replacing Nacho González who was left out of the Canary
Islanders' squad after fighting with Samways at half time in their last match
(Samways was also omitted). Miguel Angel Lotina's decision to include Sanzol in
place of Nuno proved a good one, as the keeper kept a clean sheet to keep his
team's hopes of staying up alive. César (Real Madrid), Miki (Mallorca),
Ricardo (Valladolid) and Láinez (Zaragoza) all kept their places for a
variety of reasons, and Molina came back from a one match suspension to keep
out Valencia and keep his side ahead of Mallorca in second place. Celta's
Cavallero was the third 'portero' to keep a clean sheet this weekend.
(11.06.01) |
