Portugal’s ten greatest goalkeepers | OneFootball

They are often described as crazy, solitary or mavericks. Some, though, prefer them steady, reliable and sober. There’s no other position on the pitch as important and as volatile as that of a goalkeeper. They play alone, in front of the goal, with all the responsibility in their hands. Sometimes the heroes, sometimes the villains. Yet, no side can live without them, and many of the men between the sticks have helped to forge iconic sides, granted memorable trophies while becoming part of popular culture by simply being different.

Manuel Bento makes one of several miraculous saves against France in the Euro 1984 semi-final.

Portugal has luckily been a nation blessed with many larger-than-life and skilled goalkeepers over the decades, including some of the best the world has ever seen, lauded by their peers, their teammates and, most of all, their rivals.

Their shirts may not sell as much, their names might not be up there for individual awards, but everyone knows that if you want to win something in football, you need to make sure your goal is guarded by the very best. Here is a list of the ten greatest Portuguese goalkeepers of all time in no particular order, although every single one of them will take you back to that amazing save they will forever be remembered.

Manuel Bento

Caps: 63

Talk about defying prejudices. Manuel Bento was deemed too short to become a top-class goalkeeper, yet few were as good as him during the 1970s and 1980s, the time when he became Benfica’s iconic number 1 and Portugal’s standout performer. His incredible reflexes and jumping skills made him unpredictable but terribly hard to overcome. During Euro 84, he showed the rest of the world what Portuguese fans knew already: there was no-one better.

Skipper for both Benfica and the national side – his injury in 1986 was key to Portugal’s early demise at the Mexico World Cup – he was also a man of profound convictions, part of a generation of players from the Tagus south bank of Barreiro and Seixal who first made a name for themselves in the small local clubs, with Bento carrying Barreirense all the way into European competitions, before jumping across the river to thrive in Lisbon. If there was ever someone you would not expect to be so good and, at the same time, so gentlemanly, that was Manuel Galrinho Bento.

Vítor Baía

Caps: 80

Vítor Baía in goal for Portugal in a pre-Euro 2000 friendly against Wales. (Photo: Nuno Correia, Allsport)

The golden boy of Porto. Supporters at Barcelona might not rank him as highly as he deserved – injuries and issues with Louis van Gaal didn’t help – but Vítor Baía remains the only Portuguese goalkeeper to be elected as UEFA’s best. He is one of the most decorated players, never mind goalkeepers, in the history of the game, with a career that spanned two decades between the late 1980s right until the mid-2000s. Key for José Mourinho’s all-conquering  FC Porto side, he was also part of the first and later stages of the club’s Pentacampeonato (five league wins in a row) as well as many other club honours during his years of service. When he left, the void was so huge that he was the only one who could fill it, by returning home in 1999 after three years in Spain.

His row with Luis Filipe Scolari prevented him from taking part in the Euro 2004 and 2006 World Cup, when he was at the height of his game, but his memorable performances for the national side were many, particularly during Euro 2000, a tournament he arrived at recovering from a long-term injury, one of many. Very good reflexes and commanding his goal-line well, Baía often suffered the occasional setbacks, but was probably one of his generation’s most complete goalkeepers with a legacy that remains well alive.

Rui Patrício

Caps: 108

Rui Patricio makes a flying save in the EURO 2016 final match between Portugal and France at the Stade de France, Paris. (Photo: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

He wasn’t the most brilliant of goalkeepers and sometimes showed indecisiveness at key moments, but you don’t win the European Championship and Nations League tournaments if your goalkeeper isn’t top. Patrício had the night of his life in Paris. While Éder took all the praise, the then Sporting keeper made save after save, some of extreme difficulty, to keep Portugal in the game that eventually would crown them European champions for the first time. He was also part of the first eleven that won the inaugural edition of the Nations League and seemed to have enjoyed his time more as the national team’s number one – whom he represented for more than a decade – than at club level.

At Sporting, he was a good goalkeeper, capable sometimes of having brilliant nights, but he was also much demonised by some supporters and suffered greatly from the events of the Alcochete attack and the subsequent shock defeat in the Portuguese Cup final against Aves. The tears in his eyes were redeemed in France, but never again with the Lions, with Patrício moving abroad to enjoy an up-and-down career over the years. There were, undoubtedly, goalkeepers who could have claimed to be on par with him in talent, but he was the one who took home the trophy Portugal had for so long yearned for.

António Roquette

Caps: 16

Probably one of Portugal’s most villainous sporting characters, António Roquette was also one of the nation’s first great goalkeepers. Time will remember him as the man who helped arrest his long-time friend and mentor, Cândido de Oliveira, while working for Salazar’s secret police, but during his playing days, Roquette was one of the most admired figures in the land. His height, physical attributes and reflexes made him a precocious phenomenon for both Casa Pia and the Portuguese national side during the 1920s. He was one of the very first national footballers with offers to play abroad, which he always declined because he couldn’t stand the possibility of living away from his homeland. Hero of the Portuguese Olympic campaign in 1928, he ended his career prematurely to become a police officer and then a secret agent for the future PIDE.

Ricardo Pereira

Caps: 77

Ricardo saves from Darius Vassell after taking off his gloves in Portugal’s Euro 2004 quarter-final penalty shootout against England. (Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Some will remember him for his failed attempt to grab the ball in the Euro 2004 final. Others will hold on to the moment when he decided to stop a Darius Vassel penalty kick after taking off his gloves, before proceeding to score the winner. That was Ricardo for you, a player capable of the best and worst. From his days playing as a forward in Montijo to his rise in the ranks of Jaime Pacheco’s Boavista, Ricardo was the unexpected hero goalkeeper at a time when Vítor Baía seemed the undisputed figure.

He should have played during the 2002 World Cup finals after performing brilliantly for two seasons for the Axadrezados, a key figure in their title run. Instead, he was Scolari’s first choice for the following six seasons, even if those included some of the lowest moments in his playing career, such as the mistake that cost Sporting the title in 2005 – a similar failing to deal with a cross as in the Euro 2004 final. Good reflexes, a feisty spirit but sometimes reckless on crosses, Ricardo was one of those goalkeepers with a forward’s soul, a maverick that had passionate followers and bitter critics, as would be expected.

Vítor Damas

Caps: 29

Sporting goalkeeper Vítor Damas denies the great Eusébio during a Lisbon derby.

Usually debates about who is Portugal’s best ever goalkeeper drifts between Baía and Bento, but Vítor Damas can stake a claim as good as either of them. A teenage prodigy who not only arrived very young to Sporting’s starting eleven but also to the national side, his career spanned between the late 1960s up until the mid-1980s, playing in the 1986 World Cup when his rival Bento was injured in practice. Damas was one of the first Portuguese players to move abroad – he played a couple of seasons in Santander – and was renowned for being not only a brilliant goalkeeper, known as a cat-like figure, but also the perfect gentleman on the pitch.

A Sporting icon, a club that used to have some of the best goalkeepers in the land, he probably got less recognition than he deserved as the Lions he led were already on a downward trajectory and didn’t allow him to win as many titles as his rival Manuel Bento, with whom he shared the duties protecting the Portuguese goal for fifteen years. He died prematurely dead at 55, a victim of cancer, and remains a much-admired figure nationwide.

Carlos Gomes

Caps: 18

Few players had such a rich story and that perfectly sums up what one can expect of goalkeepers and their specialness. Gomes was one of a kind at every level. He ousted the iconic Azevedo from the Sporting goal by sheer will, aged only 19, and for the following years ruled supreme in the Lions’ goals, also earning 18 caps for Portugal. However, he had a temper. Hustling Sporting to sign him as a teenager was one thing, but his criticism of teammates, staff, members of the board and even the political regime earned him few friends, and the club finally let him go despite being a key player – he won five leagues in eight seasons – on the condition that he never played in Portugal again.

Gomes moved to Spain, first to Granada, then to Oviedo, and he was even on Real Madrid’s radar for a while. In 1961, he finally returned to Sporting, but his second stint was far less successful than his first. Gomes, who was famed for his reactive saves and commanding his box, found himself in trouble, charged with an alleged rape after being punished several times by Sporting for dissent. He escaped Portugal, moved briefly to Spain and then went off to Morrocco, where he became a local legend, to the point where the royal family proposed he gain citizenship. Only when his rape conviction expired did he finally leave Africa to return to Portugal, where he lived for the rest of his days.

João Azevedo

Caps: 19

In one of Portugal´s greatest ever sides, his name rarely gets mentioned, but for a long and successful decade, Azevedo was a defensive stalwart for Sporting’s famed Cinco Violinos all-conquering eleven. The first star coming from Barreirense, and Sporting would have plenty of those later on with Carlos Gomes and Carvalho following, he moved to the Lions at 20 and stayed there for the following 18 years, winning every single trophy available, including seven league titles. He even played a match against their bitter rival Benfica with a broken collarbone.

Portugal´s indisputable number one for more than a decade, Azevedo’s first match was the memorable win against Franco’s unofficial Spanish eleven on the day when three of his teammates were arrested for not performing the fascist salute. Despite all the accolades and praise – he became known as the Frankfurt cat because of how agile he was despite his short size – football wasn’t kind to him, and neither were Sporting. He ended up his days as a taxi driver and eventually moved out to London to work as a chauffeur before returning, already ill, to his hometown in the 1990s.

Diogo Costa

Caps: 35 (and counting)

Diogo Costa saved three penalties during the EURO 2024 round of 16 shootout between Portugal and Slovenia at the Frankfurt Arena. (Photo: Lars Baron/Getty Images)

How good can you possibly be when you get into an all-time top ten without even having played for half of your professional career? That sums up what Diogo Costa is all about. A teenage prodigy, called up to replace the iconic Iker Casillas, he has the best attributes of the Spanish goalkeeper alongside his longtime idol, Vítor Baía. Good in the air, with his feet, and especially, with his monstrous reflexes, Costa not only became Porto’s saviour more than once over the last five years, but he also showed he was capable of the impossible once named Portugal’s number one.

A penalty-saving specialist to boot, his performances during the 2022 World Cup and Euro 2024 will be remembered for the ages despite the side’s inability to meet expectations, while his role in Portugal’s second Nations League triumph was key. He is quite possibly destined to become the world’s number one goalkeeper at some point in his career.

Frederico Barrigana

Caps: 12

“Iron Hands” was not a lucky man despite being a brilliant goalkeeper. He belonged to FC Porto’s ranks for fourteen years of the sixteen years the club went without winning the league. The year he left for Salgueiros, after incoming manager Dorival Yustrich told him he was about to be relegated to the bench, Porto were finally crowned league champions. Yet, despite all that, he was beloved by supporters who knew that they had in him an immense player who really knew his trade.

So much so that, at a time when rarely Porto players were called up for the national side, he did the unthinkable and took over Azevedo as Portugal’s number one. He had rivalled the Sporting goalkeeper while both were at the Lisbon club. Barrigana, born in Alcochete and one of many iconic keepers coming from the South Bank, only travelled up north because the then Dragons number one, the Hungarian Bela Andrasik, was forced to flee the country to avoid arrest by the PIDE secret police. His stint might have been trophyless, but his memories stay forever.