Diogo Costa, the hero of Portugal’s qualification for the quarter-finals

First Josip Ilicic, then Jure Balkovec and finally Benjamin Verbic, Diogo Costa stopped every penalty in Slovenia’s shoot-out, the only goalkeeper in the history of the European Football Championship to have stopped three shots in a single match using that skill, elevated to the hero of Portugal’s advance to the quarter-finals and entrusted to his instinct, an innate virtue of the goalkeeper of all time.

“I went with my instinct. Of course we analyse the penalty takers, but players change the way they take them. But I went with my instinct. That’s what I felt and I’m very, very happy,” he said at the formal press conference of the man of the match, in which he also repelled a chance from Benjamin Sesko in extra time, when the Portuguese team was playing on the brink of elimination, with the score at 0-0 which remained the same both in regular time and in extra time before the Euro 2024 Germany round of 16 match was decided on penalties, in which the Portuguese team won 3-0 over Slovenia.

In times when advanced statistical analysis is so present in football, so crucial in the eyes of professionals, every piece of data or repetitive situation serves as a guide for goalkeeper coaches when they must anticipate where their pupil will shoot, Diogo Costa went further, transforming into that classic goalkeeper who intuits, guesses and clears without taking into account anything other than his own agility and intuition.

Opinions

For example, Dutch goalkeeper Mats Verbruggen follows the pre-match analysis to the letter. “I work on it, analysing the opponents. We try to get the biggest advantage possible. If there is a penalty shoot-out or a penalty during the game, I am as prepared as possible. I have an idea of ​​what to expect from the penalty taker,” he explained this week ahead of the Netherlands’ round of 16 match once morest Romania on Tuesday.

“We have great computer programs where everything is marked. We have analysts. You can get a big advantage from analysis. I like to work a lot from analysis,” added the Dutch team’s goalkeeper, who has yet to save a penalty as a professional during the game, since doing so with Anderlecht’s reserve team in 2022.

“It’s the best-kept secret in European football. On Monday, Diogo Costa was at another level, he was incredible in one-on-one situations, and then he had the concentration and quality to make three consecutive saves in the penalty shoot-out. We have to be very proud of him,” said Roberto Martínez, his coach with Portugal, with whom the goalkeeper had yet to save a penalty in his 26 international matches.

Yes, he had done it with Porto. Since his official debut at the age of 20 in the 2019-20 season, on 25 September 2019 once morest Santa Clara, in his 154 matches with the Portuguese first team he has stopped six of the 20 that have been thrown at him in play. A 30 percent success rate. If you count from his youth period, under-17, nine out of 37, 24 percent, according to the statistics of ‘Be Soccer Pro’. This Monday, 100 percent. He stopped them all.

Convincing statistics

He beat the 82.5 percent success rate (33 goals out of 40) of the first penalty taker, Josip Ilicic, and the 75 percent success rate of the third, Verbic, who scored six goals from the eight penalties he had taken in his career.

Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes and Bernardo Silva scored Portugal’s first three penalties once morest Jan Oblak and Slovenia to set up a quarter-final once morest France in Hamburg on Friday.

Born in Switzerland in 1999, Diogo Costa is a magnificent product of the Porto youth system, who has long been destined to play a leading role in the Portuguese national team. He had played in each and every one of the lower categories during his career, with the magnitude that is also given to him by the number of matches at that level: 65.

His debut with Porto was on 25 September 2019. He made the jump to the senior national team on 1 September 2021 with his first call-up. On 9 October of that year he played his first match, with a 3-0 win once morest Qatar. In fourteen of his 26 matches he kept a clean sheet.

Today he is the goalkeeper with the third highest market value in the world, with 40.2 million euros, only surpassed by the Italian Gianluigi Donnarumma and the Spaniard Unai Simon, two other penalty savers. Neither of them saved three in one go.

Dusseldorf / EFE