There are times in a goalkeeper’s career when they are talked about. There are times when they are not.
Manuel Neuer is a topic of conversation at the moment; he is scrutinised and debated, his displays analysed to the tiniest detail.
His Germany are now qualified for the knockout round of Euro 2024. Their 2-0 win over Hungary guaranteed progression, sparing them the ignominy of the group-stage eliminations suffered at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The national mood is good. The ego is starting to grow.
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“We were determined to win today and confirm our performance against Scotland,” said Neuer. “We knew Hungary would be a difficult opponent, but we were dominant. You could see the euphoria in the stadium. We’re happy to be playing this tournament at home.”
Neuer could celebrate a first clean sheet of the tournament, not least because, prior to Euro 2024, he had been under relentless pressure. In the week before the first game against Scotland, Bild, the German tabloid, ran a poll asking its readers who should be starting in goal for Germany. Over 70 per cent picked Marc-Andre ter Stegen of Barcelona.
“But we were unlucky to concede against Scotland — I thought we deserved a clean sheet there,” Neuer said on Wednesday night. “It was very important not to concede today.”
Neuer was the reason why Germany did not concede. There was a save to deny Roland Sallai inside the first minute, then another to push away Dominik Szoboszlai’s free kick before the half-hour mark. That was particularly watchable; as was the smart footwork he produced to kick away the rebound as Barnabas Varga threatened an equaliser.
His passing was good. He strutted as he always does. For all intents and purposes, Neuer was Neuer. One of the most decorated goalkeepers in history. One of his generation’s most dominant and dependable players.
But in the present, a debate persists around his place in this side — because he is at such a strange place in his career, because of the bizarre circumstances of the past few years and because, like all great players, he is condemned to be compared to the best version of himself for ever.
Against the Hungarians, he did not concede any goals, even if there were mistakes.
A bad fumble was headed in on the rebound by Sallai but not before the offside flag had been raised. That did not cost Germany, but it could have.
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In the second half, Neuer slightly misjudged the flight of a corner, allowing it to drift over him and towards the back post. There was no Hungarian player there to capitalise, but there could have been — maybe would have been, had this been a game against France or England, Spain or Italy.
This is a strange habit peculiar to the analysis of goalkeepers. Every other player on the pitch is assessed minute-by-minute, almost on the strength of their last touch of the ball. When a keeper is in good or bad form, the search is always for the definitive tell.
Even in that strange context, Neuer is a special case.
At 38, every misstep he makes begins a conversation about his terminal decline. Making that particularly unfair is that Neuer has set extraordinary standards throughout his career, and for the better part of two decades. The curse of the great player is to be endlessly compared to themselves at their very best. And then hammered whenever they fall short.
The end of the domestic season was a pertinent example of just that. Bayern were eliminated from the Champions League after Neuer’s fumble had cost them a late goal against Real Madrid. That it came at the end of 180 minutes of fabulous goalkeeping was given second billing.
Then, during Germany’s two preparatory friendlies, the pattern repeated. Neuer played well in both games and made excellent saves. And yet he made mistakes in both, too; one that cost a goal, one that did not.
The result was that tabloid poll and the swell of support for Ter Stegen, who is an exceptional goalkeeper at club level and his performances for Barcelona are often of the highest standard. Among his 40 caps for Germany, though, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that he deserves to displace Neuer on a full-time basis.
Or that it would be worth the political risk for Nagelsmann. When the squad for this tournament was selected, Mats Hummels and Leon Goretzka were both left out for harmony reasons. Nagelsmann did not want experienced senior players in his squad if they were not going to start. Naturally, a conspiratorial perspective on the Neuer situation is that he has to play and that Nagelsmann could not accommodate a disaffected veteran of his standing.
It’s a simplification, but that suggestion has kept grinding away in the background — another complication in an already layered situation.
Then there is the injury Neuer suffered 18 months ago. In December 2022, Neuer did not so much break his leg as shatter it. He fractured his tibia and fibula while on a family skiing holiday and had to be airlifted down from the Austrian Alps to begin a 10-month rehabilitation.
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Nothing has quite been the same since.
That accident created a neat before-and-after and, ultimately, another reason to pay extra attention to his every touch of the ball. Does he push off his right leg anymore? Does his reach extend in the way that it used to? To say this is a granular conversation would be an understatement.
There has been melodrama, too. Bayern have just emerged from a fractious season during which dressing-room disharmony was alleged and Thomas Tuchel departed as head coach. Before Tuchel even arrived, though, and before Neuer had returned from that injury, the club was plunged into chaos with the goalkeeper at the centre of the controversy. Toni Tapalovic, his coach, was sacked in February 2023. The two were incredibly close and worked together for more than 11 years. Tapalovic was even best man at Neuer’s wedding.
It was reported that he was dismissed for passing information from other coaches to Neuer — something that the goalkeeper has denied. Julian Nagelsmann, who was Bayern’s head coach at the time, also said that he and Tapalovic never worked together properly.
Nagelsmann, of course, was himself sacked in March 2023, which created plenty of muttering about what role, if any, the Tapalovic saga had played. On and on; sub-plots and gossip.
When Nagelsmann then became Germany’s head coach in September 2023, it became his job to bat away suggestions from reporters that Neuer was not the same. That was still happening on the eve of this tournament. Nagelsmann expressed his determination after Neuer’s mistake against Greece that the goalkeeping situation would “not become a conversation”, no matter how many times reporters asked about it.
Rudi Voller, the DFB’s sports director, reinforced that determination.
“We don’t need a discussion about the goalkeeper now,” Voller said. “There are other issues that should concern us more.”
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There are, but this one is not going away. The Neuer loyalists in the German media pronounced his performance to have been miraculous against Hungary, almost overcompensating with their hyperbole. Those in the other camp questioned whether his spectacular first-half save had really been so rare. Had Szoboszlai’s free kick really been in the corner? Was it not at a nice height?
That debate will rage on. Game by game, save by save, Manuel Neuer continues to walk the line under the brightest light.
(Top photo: A4281 Christian Charisius/picture alliance via Getty Images)