Sixteen hours, 57 minutes and 34 seconds. What productive thing have you done for that amount of time?
Diego Restrepo hasn't allowed a goal.
For the Virginia men's soccer team's goalkeeper, not one ball has crossed the goal line since the Oct. 17 match against Virginia Tech - that's seven weeks ago. For 1,017 minutes and 34 seconds of play, Restrepo, a transfer from South Florida in his first year with Virginia, has been perfect, inasmuch as a goalkeeper can be.
As I'm sure many readers of this story will be attending the team's NCAA Tournament quarterfinal game against Maryland tonight - the last game Virginia hosts before a potential trip to the Final Four in Cary, N.C. - I would like to examine just how talented Restrepo is at one of the most exciting positions in sports.
How and why do I have any authority on the subject? As a student reporter, I don't claim to have every answer to every question about Virginia sports. But, I am also a former goalkeeper.
That's not to say that I am an all-star - if I were, then someone else would be writing this story about me. But, my strength as a goalkeeper has always been knowing what to do. Throughout summers, I have trained GKs at all levels - from a group of peewees to one-on-one training with Division I keepers. Even if I can't do it myself, I can tell you what to do and where to be.
My expert analysis on Restrepo? He's freakin' good, even by college standards. Here are a few reasons why.
Breakaways: where, when, and how.
I've seen Restrepo make a variety of stuffs on breakaways - one-on-ones between the forward and the goalie - this year. The toughest breakaways for a GK occur when there is not a free ball - the attacker has the ball on his foot, and if you, the goalie, come flying out, he'll just touch it right by you and make you look foolish.
From what I've seen, Restrepo is a master on such plays. The key is: Come off your line too early, and you end up in the ever-vulnerable no-man's land; too late, and you leave too much goal at which to shoot. Commit to a dive too early, and the forward dribbles right by you; fail to commit when you should, and the ball is past you before you can react.
One save Restrepo made in the second half against Portland Sunday illustrates this point. First, a Portland midfielder plays a penetrating through-ball for a forward sprinting into the box. Initially, Restrepo has the choice of attacking the ball right then. He recognizes, however, that he will not get there in time to snuff the ball off the forward's foot, so Restrepo chooses to hold his ground. In addition, defender Shawn Barry is right on the forward's back, so Restrepo does not want to bail out the forward by giving him a chance for a one-touch finish.
The striker takes a touch forward into the 18 at a sharp angle to the right of goal. Restrepo has the opportunity to come off his line; again, though, he is wise, merely advancing forward a step. And, what's more, he slides a step to his left to shut off the near post. It is a perfect read by Restrepo - forwards at the college level often take a big touch into the box to try and bait a goalie off the line, before surprising them with a quick shot to the far post with an extended leg on the next touch. As it turned out, that's exactly what the forward did - and had Restrepo come flying off his line, he likely would have gotten burned.
At this point, Restrepo has the forward lined up nicely. The striker is already at a narrow angle to the goal, and by advancing forward a step, Restrepo has shrunk the shooting angle. Plus, Barry is still on the forward's heels, so the player can't cut the ball back - he must either shoot or take another touch toward the end-line, which would shrink the shooting angle even more.
So, the forward begins to extend his right foot for a shot. But Restrepo doesn't wait to see what the ball does to begin reacting - he does the necessary footwork to begin a dive to the near post, much like a baseball hitter beginning his swing during a pitcher's windup. As the ball is struck, Restrepo can now react accordingly. He can make a reaction save to the near post with his hands, and even if the forward attempts a difficult shot across his body to the far post, Restrepo can still have that covered with his legs and torso. The forward takes the near-post route, and Restrepo makes a brilliant save to his left.
But the most challenging part of the play wasn't the save itself. It was the decision-making, the positioning and the situational recognition followed by anticipation. From there, athleticism takes over.
Shot-stopping
It would seem that talking about a goalkeeper's shot-stopping ability is rather redundant. After all, isn't that what the goalie does, block shots? As the described breakaway save makes clear, though, there is much more to successful goalkeeping than that. And shot-stopping, too, involves much more than reacting to the ball and saving it.
Again, Restrepo has a keen understanding of positioning, which is an integral part of shot-stopping ability. The drill commonly taught to goalkeepers for how to position themselves for shots is to tie a string to the goal posts at each end, and then extend the middle of the string out to the ball. This creates a triangle, whose three sides are: 1) the length from the ball to the near post, 2) the length from the ball to the far post and 3) the goal line. So long as the ball is an appreciable distance away from the end-line, the goalkeeper wants to position himself in the middle of the triangle, but also advance a few steps off the line. By moving up on the ball, the goalkeeper again cuts down the angle such that he can more easily cover a shot to either post with a simple dive. The best goalkeepers are those who have to dive the least - they just seem to always be in the right spot when a shot comes.
While Restrepo has this element of shot-stopping nailed, he also has an even rarer sense of anticipation. A clever goalkeeper can sometimes read where a shot is going to be placed before the ball is struck. Numerous situational cues can give a goalkeeper this information: the rotation of the striker's hips, the positioning of a defender in relation to the ball, the way the striker approaches the ball and numerous other clues. More than anything, it's just instinct, and Restrepo has plenty of it. It's not just his highly impressive reaction time that allows him to make outstanding saves, it's that he knows where the ball is going before just about anyone else in the stadium does, possibly including the striker of the ball.
These are merely a couple of ways in which Restrepo excels as goalkeeper and demonstrate how he has truly earned his scoreless-minutes record. His remarkable athleticism. His poise and communication with defenders. Perhaps most importantly, his unwavering confidence, a must for one of the most pressure-packed positions in sports.
Want to see it for yourself? Virginia is in for a battle tonight at home against Maryland at 7 p.m.. Restrepo, no doubt, will be tested.
But, you've got time. You've got all of your waking hours to make plans. Even if you're reading the online edition of this column at 2:02:26 a.m., you've got 16 hours, 57 minutes and 34 seconds.
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