Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free
Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter
Manchester City have amassed a squad brimming with technique and talent. They have players who caress a ball as much as strike one. They have those who are defined by the precision of their passing. They have a man who may prove the greatest goalscorer of his generation.
And so their outstanding spot-kick taker is… the goalkeeper? “He is our best penalty taker,” said Pep Guardiola. “Along with Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne.” Manuel Akanji narrowed it down further. “Ederson is probably the best penalty taker in our team, Erling as well,” the defender said, “When Ederson takes the penalty, I know it is a goal.” Oscar Bobb felt he was in the top one. “I think so,” said the winger. “I haven’t seen Ederson miss so probably, yeah.”
The Community Shield amounted to a triumph of a reluctant remainer. Ederson could have been found in Riyadh or Jeddah rather than Wembley now. Playing for City pays well; playing in Saudi Arabia is still more lucrative. A bid from Al-Nassr was rejected. Al-Ittihad were interested and Ederson too, in swapping the Mancunian rain for the desert of the Middle East, but neither club met City’s asking price and both of his Saudi suitors have since signed other goalkeepers. Now the assumption is that Ederson stays. The start of a new season could have marked City’s first game after the Brazilian; instead, it may be another trophy that Guardiola attributes to his footballing goalkeeper.
Not the most celebrated: that is the Champions League where Ederson’s late saves from Robin Gosens and Romelu Lukaku can be overlooked amid the impressions of inevitability about City’s triumph. Not by Guardiola. There are times when it seems that being City’s goalkeeper is the most lucrative of part-time jobs, given that they can spend much of a match as a spectator. Guardiola may disagree with that: his emphasis on a passing goalkeeper means Ederson, a left-back at points in his youth, doubles up as the 11th outfield player.
It rendered him a trailblazer in the Premier League, a catalyst in the shift of style under Guardiola. “You cannot understand this process that we have lived for many years without Ederson: his charisma, his consistency,” the Catalan said on Friday.
An element has been added: his calm spot kicks. At Wembley, for the second time in four months, Guardiola put Ederson on the pressure penalty: the fifth. He scored against Real Madrid, even though City exited the Champions League anyway. He scored against Manchester United, though it took a further three penalties apiece for Akanji to ensure victory after Jonny Evans had ballooned his effort.
The turning point, however, belonged to more typical skills for a goalkeeper: a raised right arm tipping Jadon Sancho’s penalty on to the post when Bernardo Silva’s early miss had afforded United the initiative. Penalties – the goalkeeping part of them, anyway – has not always been Ederson’s field of expertise. In matches, he has saved six and conceded 51. In the Real Madrid shootout, however, he saved from Luka Modric. If he only stopped one of seven on target from United, they missed two of eight in total. That proved enough.
And, Ederson may note, for the second time in two trips to Wembley, a City goalkeeper had a decisive impact in deciding the destination of a trophy. Stefan Ortega was partly culpable – though Josko Gvardiol more at fault – for Alejandro Garnacho’s goal in the FA Cup final.
His understudy had acquired the reputation as the best second choice in the business; one with aspirations to be more than that. Meanwhile, the criticism is that Ederson saves too few shots: his save percentage dipped to 62 in the 2022-23 Premier League, the fifth lowest among 23 regular goalkeepers. But while it was up at 70 last year, when Stefan Ortega made the potentially title-winning stop from Heung-Min Son at Tottenham in the penultimate match, there was a temptation to wonder if Ederson would have proved their rescuer in such a fashion. City themselves know Ortega is their best goalkeeper in one-on-one situations. When the German signed a new contract in the summer, it added to the impression that Ederson may leave.
When Ederson looked shaky in pre-season, it may have created more competition. Guardiola invariably gives the reserve goalkeeper the FA Cup – damagingly when Zack Steffen was Ederson’s deputy – and Ortega had been granted last season’s Community Shield, too. Indeed, Ederson had only played in one previous Community Shield in seven seasons at City.
But there was a decisive answer from Guardiola on Friday when asked who would start: Ederson. And while the City manager ascribes less importance to the Community Shield than any other trophy – it helps when you have won so many more prestigious prizes – it had the feel of a statement, a vote of confidence. Even if it was only an attempt to allow Ederson to find form and confidence after pre-season, it worked. And while penalties were an issue at City for years, with a host of misses in matches, perhaps Guardiola has found his man for the fifth spot kick in any shootout. And rather than a long walk up from the centre circle, he only has a few yards to travel after facing one.
