What characterizes a soccer goalkeeper? Think of Manuel Neuer for a moment: Yes, of course, he must have good responsiveness and excellent reflexes, these days it doesn’t hurt either if he has gone through the squad language training for professional footballers, knows when to say “broad-chested”, “up the place” and “we have rewarded ourselves” must say . According to Max Merkel, legendary coach of the Sixties, the Nürnberger Club and Rapid Vienna, a good goalkeeper must also have a quirk.
But one crucial quality of the goalkeeper should not be forgotten in all this: fearlessness. Anyone who has ever stood between two of these net-covered posts, for example to fend off the increasingly powerful shots of their own offspring with increasing age, knows what we are talking about here. Fear is something that no goalie should have.
Fear is something that rarely anyone can use, at least nowadays. In olden times it was useful to warn against a saber-toothed tiger. But as you know, it no longer exists. Fear helps neither the employee before the annual appraisal with the boss nor the twelfth grader with the math Abitur or the sufferer who has to go to the dentist for a root canal treatment.
But it’s no use, we can’t get rid of the fear completely. But it could make sense not to look for a job that constantly confronts you, i.e. wanting to become a keynote speaker if you find it particularly difficult to speak in front of people or entomologists if you are dealing with arachnophobia. Surely the Huber boys wouldn’t have become half as famous if their hands got sweaty and ice cold every time they suddenly realized their situation on an overhang several hundred meters away.
And so the profession of drain cleaner doesn’t seem ideal if you’re afraid of water – and of heights. No joke, there is. He has a problem with both, explained the recently called expert, who was supposed to empty the clogged kitchen drain at regular intervals, when he heard that the drainpipe has an opening that is directly under the basement ceiling and that you have to climb up a ladder.
Now the word fear comes from the Greek “agchein” and the Latin “angere”. Translated, both mean “choke”, “squeeze your throat – which would certainly happen to many when abseiling off a steep wall, or if they had to stand between the posts for the last penalty in a Champions League final. On the other hand, there is a bit of disgusting brackish water from the line but a little something.