From our special correspondent in Newcastle,
Fear was born one evening in 2022 in Madrid in the feet of Gianluigi Donnarumma. Paris gets drunk with the scent of the Champions League quarter-finals and spins the ball towards the goalkeeper, forgetting that he was not very friendly with them. There is room between Benzema and the Italian, room for a pass for Hakimi or at worst a long play, but Gigio stutters and leaves it to the Frenchman to open a space-time gap. The goalkeeper may cry out about injustice, about the mistake, about the refereeing, about this, about that, deep down he knows he is guilty. The total loss of confidence in the following months will bear witness to this.
Since then, Donnarumma has learned to kick again. We even saw him achieve one or two hooks and come close to the level that he was at Euro 2021. But generally speaking, he navigates between good and mediocre: at the moment, it’s rather excellent on the line. But there never goes a match without a sequence of apnea for the Parisian supporters over a back pass or a National 3 level check. “I continue to work on my kicking game,” he smiled at the Free microphone after the match. recent victory against Lens. That’s not always enough. From memory, against Nice (2-3 defeat) he concluded an apocalyptic first quarter of an hour with an almost decisive pass for Gaëtan Laborde that any Champions League level attacker would have pushed into the net.
Luis Enrique defends Donnarumma
There is a common denominator between each of the feverish actions: pressing. Gigio is allergic to it And against Newcastle, Wednesday evening, in a St James Park swollen by 20 years without the Champions League, we are entitled to imagine that the giant will suffer from his lack of ball at his feet against the starvation deaths in black and white. But don’t count out Luis Enrique for taking it down in public. We did the test at a press conference: moderately conclusive.
All the goalkeepers in the world suffer against a team that presses, declares the Spaniard, a bit protective. All. Not just Gigio Donnarumma. We work on the recovery phase against opposing pressure every week, regardless of the opponent. It’s obvious that Newcastle is a difficult team to play against, with results to back it up. We will face them with our identity and our philosophy as we do every week. We work on this point every week in any case. »
A slightly disappointing response, it was not so much about lynching Donnarumma for free, as it was about questioning its compatibility with hyper-possession football that is relatively technically demanding for goalkeepers and exploring avenues to improve its recovery. Like, randomly asking for more support from teammates. Because, as clumsy as he is, the Italian is rarely helped by his defenders when he is drowning in front of his goals. “Defenders must know how to adapt to their partner’s faults and make him as comfortable as possible, avoiding throwing sausages at him, for example,” analyzes former OL goalkeeper Nicolas Puydebois. But he must progress. When you are a very high level goalkeeper, kicking is an aspect in which you must improve. »And there, there is no more secret. Whether you’re 5, 10, 15 or 45 years old, you have to work on your ranges like a boxer until it fits in.
Hip and coordination problem
Asked about the question by Eurosport, the former Chelsea goalkeeping coach, Christophe Lollichon, suggested having him train “at the heart of the game, among the players while being put under pressure in conservation games. » And if it were up to us, the Gigio, we would stick it facing a wall for an hour every morning making passes with one or two touches. Right foot, left foot, right foot… Nicolas Puydebois : “effectively, there is only the repetition of these gestures to make it progress. But unfortunately, when you play every three days, you hardly have time to work specifically. The goalkeeper’s palette is so wide that there is very little time left to work on the kicking game. » We say no thanks to the infernal calendars of UEFA and Fifa, although the World Cup no longer really concerns Italy but in short, we get lost.
The tactical-technical-mental aspect removed, there remains one last point to explain Donnarumma’s limited room for progress with his feet. Its morphology. 1m96 and 90kg, we don’t give you the picture, the guardians of his stature are rarely ballet dancers (Neuer doesn’t count, he was a cyborg at his peak). Christophe Lollichon even diagnosed the Parisian with a hip problem. “He has a problem on his left foot, a blockage at the hip. The opposing teams know it, he is put under pressure. The lack of control and fluidity then appears directly. »
“He still has room for improvement compared to what he shows,” tempers Puydebois. For example, his size does not prevent him from diving very quickly to the ground, that is his great quality. At the very highest level we tend to say that we must accentuate our qualities and limit our weaknesses. He must continue to be very strong on his line while limiting the damage to his kicking game. While knowing that he will never become Ederson or Ter Stegen. » Luis Enrique can make us believe what he wants, it remains a limiting factor in modern football with 11 players.