Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak had a night to forget as he conceded five goals in his side’s 5-3 loss to Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup semi-final.
In what was a heavily entertaining, action-packed game with thrills and spills, Oblak was made to look like a fool.
He couldn’t really do much about the majority of the goals because of how clinically and suddenly the opponents converted them.
However, Oblak’s most embarrassing moment of the game was right in the dying moments of the match. With Real Madrid holding Atletico Madrid at full-time, extra time was forced.
Los Blancos scored through forward Joselu in the 116th minute, helping them get a big advantage heading into the final few moments.
Atletico tried their best to score a fourth goal in the added time of extra time and Oblak decided to go up for a corner.
But things started to go horribly wrong after that. Real Madrid defended the corner really well before sprinting through on the break.
At one point, it appeared that Oblak would reach the ball ahead of any opposition player and put it out of play.
However, the Atletico Madrid goalkeeper was just not fast enough with his sprinted and ended up witnessing Brahim Diaz surge past him and then score a goal by shooting a shot into an open net from a long way out.
The goal put the nail in the coffin for Atletico and also ended up leaving Oblak open to a lot of mockery and trolling.
Real Madrid fans have taken the mickey out of the experienced goalkeeper for horribly losing out on the race to get to the ball despite being many yards closer to it than Diaz after the corner.
The reason behind this happening is that Oblak, a goalkeeper, doesn’t put that much emphasis on improving his sprinting speed that a winger like Brahim does – mostly because he has to put more work into his shot-stopping activities.
Irrespective, Oblak being made to eat dust by the Real Madrid man has now been compare to how Gareth Bale left former Barcelona defender Marc Batra panting after an amazing counter-attack in the 2014 Copa Del Rey final.
In what was considered as one of the best goals the Welshman ever socred for Real Madrid, he received the ball just around the halfway line and had Batra tightly marking him.
The Welsh winger flicked the ball up field towards the Barcelona box, but Batra tried to body-block him and ended up send him into the manager’s area in the sidelines.
However, Bale showed zero intention of stopping despite being nearly sidelined, as he burst past Batra like The Flash before getting into the box and then coolly finishing past the goalkeeper.
The amazing goal helped Real Madrid clinch the Copa Del Rey title and is still considered as one of the best El Clasico goals ever.
Brahim has now his own rendition of that goal after completely destroying Oblak in the foot race.
He even spoke about the incident after the game, saying: “I’m not slow, I saw that Oblak wasn’t in goal and he’s not used to sprinting and that’s why I beat him in the race. I finished really well and I celebrated it like a Madrid goal, with passion and right to the end.”
Now, of course, Oblak’s career is unlikely to be hampered by this goal.
But it shows how important a player’s speed can be in football and why modern-day goalkeepers might need to improve their own pace levels – be it for ‘sweeper keeper’ duties or to avoid such embarrassments.
