All hail ‘world-class monster’ David de Gea at Fiorentina: Now a penalty-saving extraordinaire
It’s tempting to be churlish and say that it’s just David de Gea’s luck that on a day when he saved two penalties, he had his thunder stolen by another ex-Premier League ‘keeper – Girona’s Paulo Gazzaniga.
The former Tottenham back-up stopped three different players, albeit one as a re-take, as Girona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 over in La Liga. Fate conspired to give Cristhian Stuani the opportunity to show the Basques how it’s done from the spot to claim all three points in the dying minutes.
But do you think De Gea cares at all about that? Not one jot. The ex-Manchester United No.1 simply appears thrilled to be back standing between the sticks, reminding us all quite how bonkers it was of a player of his ability to be effectively go and take a gap year during his prime.
There was something perplexing about De Gea failing to find a club throughout the entirety of last season. Yes, there were notable errors. Yes, distribution was never his greatest strength, making him ill-suited to a number of today’s top clubs.
Yet even in his latter years, De Gea was capable of spectacular saves. On his day he remained one of the greatest shot-stoppers of his generation. And he departed Old Trafford with a Golden Glove for the most clean sheets in the Premier League, having played his part in the club ending a six-year trophy drought while getting back into the top four.
There surely would’ve been some head-spinning Saudi offers. Maybe a nice and breezy MLS stint like Hugo Lloris.
Real Madrid could’ve done worse than giving him a call when Thibaut Courtois suffered a serious injury, instead perplexingly going for Kepa Arrizabalaga, only to drop the Chelsea loanee for their existing back-up Andriy Lunin.
As De Gea spent a year in the free agent wilderness, you started to wonder if he might just quietly retire, happy with his lot.
He evidently has enough cash in the bank and maybe he just he’d just decided he’d had already had a career’s worth of noise and nonsense across his decade-plus stint at Old Trafford. In which case we’d have absolutely said fair play.
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It turns out that De Gea actually enjoys this football lark, though, and was convinced to put an end to his year of rest and relaxation to sign for Fiorentina in August.
“I am proud to wear the Viola shirt and to represent Florence. Thank you all,” he said.
“I want to thank the technical staff. It was a different year than usual. I decided to take a sabbatical, but I continued training alone. I had to be at my best, and when Fiorentina arrived, I had clear ideas.
“They have great fans and a great history. It was an easy decision; I didn’t want to retire. Fiorentina have had great players and goalkeepers. I want to be part of the club’s history, help the young players, and have a winning mentality.”
For all De Gea’s qualities, you’d never have said that penalty-saving was among them. He once went over five years without stopping a single one at Manchester United.
The abiding memory of him facing spot-kicks was the infamous 2021 Europa League final defeat to Villarreal, in which he looked increasingly smaller as he failed to deny all 11 of their players in an epic shootout, including his opposite number, before missing from 12 yards himself.
As it went on, De Gea seemed to get smaller for each subsequent penalty, like one of those viral Photoshop Twitter threads.
But the memory of that night in Gdansk didn’t appear to hang heavy as he stepped up to deny AC Milan’s Theo Hernandez and Tammy Abraham, one in each half.
These were not poor penalties struck close to him – hello, Anthony Gordon – but rather well-placed strikes into the corners. On both occasions, De Gea did exceptionally well to stretch out and get a hand to them.
David De Gea has now faced 3 Penalties as a Fiorentina player, he saved it all.
CLASSIC 👏 pic.twitter.com/4zNG6mhF8W— Zirkzee (@ZirkSzn) October 6, 2024
“Trust me, he’s still a monster. He’s a top, world-class player,” Fiorentina boss Raffaele Palladino told reporters after the final whistle.
“We can see why he’s a champion, a real one. We should thank him every day, he’s a top goalkeeper and a role model.”
On this latest evidence, we have no reason not to take Palladino at his word.
You might extrapolate wider narratives about silencing his doubters and sticking one to Manchester United after his long-running contract saga fizzled out to a disappointing conclusion, but De Gea himself doesn’t seem particularly bothered about any of that – so why should we?
For now, he appears to be enjoying doing his job at a decent level. Which ought to be the case. It’s good to have him back.
By Nestor Watach