Goalkeepers don’t get enough praise in the modern game, even though the best goalkeepers so often make the difference between victory and defeat.
Look no further than Thibaut Courtois’ heroics throughout the 2021/22 season for LaLiga and Champions League winners Real Madrid.
Let’s rank the 10 best goalkeepers in world football right now, at this very moment in time. That means the GOAT Manuel Neuer has to be taken out, but once he returns from a broken leg and gets back in form, he will surely rank on this list again.
10. Gianluigi Donnarumma, PSG
A hero for the Italian national team in the 2020 European Championships, Gianluigi Donnarumma is a phenom who started his first Serie A match for Milan at the age of 16.
Within just a few years, Donnarumma became the best goalkeeper in his league before moving to PSG as a free agent in a transfer that, at the time, left a bitter taste for Milanistas.
Donnarumma has played well for PSG, but he’s been inconsistent. After an awful error against Real Madrid in the 2021/22 Champions League Round of 16, Donnarumma made another mistake in the first leg against Bayern München this season. PSG would be knocked out of both ties.
While Donnarumma should be higher than 10th on the basis of his raw ability, there’s nothing wrong with being the 10th-best keeper in world football. The 24-year-old is still among the best in the world.
9. Édgar Badía, Elche
Édgar Badía may be the most surprising name on this list, but fans of LaLiga understand just how good he is.
Badía plays for the worst team in Europe’s top five leagues this season, Elche, and he so often has to keep his team in games by making stunning save after stunning save.
If the criteria is solely the quality of saves, Badía would be first. No keeper in Europe’s top five leagues has a better catalogue of saves in the 2022/23 season than the Elche starter.
Backing this up, Badía is second behind only Alisson in expected goals prevented with 8.0.
8. Bono, Sevilla
A standout at the World Cup for Morocco, Bono has been one of the best goalkeepers in European football since joining Sevilla for the 2019/20 season after a tremendous 2018/19 campaign with Girona in LaLiga, saving 77.7 percent of the shots he faced.
Since taking over as the full-time starter from Tomáš Vaclik, Bono has been one of the three best goalkeepers in the Spanish top flight alongside living league legends Thibaut Courtois and Marc-André ter Stegen.
Sevilla have been poor in the 2022/23 season, and Bono has suffered accordingly, but he should still be recognized as one of the best goalkeepers in the world. After all, he saved 77.4 and 78.0 percent of the shots he faced in his first two seasons as Sevilla’s regular starter, as well as 90.0 percent across six appearances in 2019/20.
7. Ivan Provedel, Lazio
One of the most underrated players in Serie A and right there with Édgar Badía as one of the most underrated goalkeepers in the world, Ivan Provedel has fit Lazio perfectly and has been instrumental in Maurizio Sarri’s quest for a top-four finish in the Italian top flight.
Provedel has been the absolute best keeper in Serie A this season in light of Mike Maignan’s injury. After playing a pivotal role in underdog Spezia’s survival for a couple of seasons, Provedel has successfully made the step up to the Biancocelesti.
He rarely makes mistakes and produces at least one top-quality save every match. Provedel has stopped an impressive 79.3 percent of the shots he’s faced.
6. Yann Sommer, Bayern München
Yann Sommer is Bayern München’s new No. 1, replacing Manuel Neuer after a freak skiing accident. In truth, Sommer has outperformed Neuer in the Bundesliga for the past couple of seasons, and he’s shown that he’s capable of shining in the spotlight, too, performing at the highest level for Switzerland in international competitions.
Who can forget his performance at the Euros vs. France?
Of course, Bayern already knew first-hand how good Sommer is, especially in the big matches, as he regularly tortured Bayern supporters as the Borussia Mönchengladbach No. 1.
Sommer once set a Bundesliga record with 19 saves against Die Roten!
This season, Sommer is one of seven goalkeepers in Europe’s top five leagues with a save percentage of at least 80, and he is second behind only Alisson in expected goals prevented per 90.
A leader who is excellent on the ball and produces some of the finest reflex saves on the planet, Sommer is finally getting his due as a world-class shot-stopper.
5. Gregor Kobel, Dortmund
Yet Yann Sommer isn’t even the best keeper in Switzerland despite maintaining his status as the country’s No. 1. Gregor Kobel has been even better this season for Borussia Dortmund, keeping Die Schwarzgelben in the title race despite their defensive issues and lack of midfield stability.
Few goalkeepers at a top club make decisive saves with the frequency Kobel does. He is also fantastic on the ball despite constantly being put under pressure by his Dortmund teammates.
Kobel is as valuable to Dortmund as any goalkeeper is to their team in the world, and you only have to look at how the team plays without him to see that.
Just 25 years old, Kobel is the best young keeper on the planet and is already one of the five best at his position.
It is scary to think the levels he can reach in the future, and it’s no wonder why clubs like Bayern and Chelsea want him as a long-term target.
4. Mike Maignan, Milan
Rafael Leão gets all the headlines, and the 2021/22 Serie A MVP really was that vital in the Rossoneri’s conquest of the Scudetto.
But Frenchman Mike Maignan was just as important to Milan’s success, easily being selected as the best goalkeeper in Italian football.
Maignan’s injury in 2022/23 significantly affected Milan defensively. This team becomes unstable without Maignan, much in the same way Dortmund falls apart without Gregor Kobel between the sticks.
The 27-year-old’s numbers in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 season are outright ridiculous, but what’s even more impressive is the fact that Lille and Milan won their league titles in those two years with Maignan. And without him, they weren’t really close to being champions.
Maignan saved 79.4 percent of the shots he faced with 0.61 goals allowed per 90 for Lille, and then he saved 81.4 percent of the shots he faced with a meager 0.66 goals allowed per 90 for the Rossoneri. Top, top class.
3. Alisson, Liverpool
There’s a case to be made that Alisson has been the best keeper of the 2022/23 season in Europe’s top five leagues. The world-class Brazilian was one of the best goalkeepers in the world for Roma before joining Liverpool and adding to his legacy in the Champions League, eventually becoming a Premier League champion, too.
A number of players have helped Liverpool become a powerhouse in European football under Jürgen Klopp, but, in so many ways, Alisson was the missing piece. He is a fantastic shot-stopper and leader.
That headed goal he scored in 2020/21 to push Liverpool into the top four encapsulates the X-Factor he brings to the table for the Reds.
In 2022/23, Alisson leads all goalkeepers in expected goals prevented, saving more than 10 goals for an otherwise disappointing Liverpool side. Amidst this shambolic season, Alisson’s play has only magnified his importance to the Reds.
2. Marc-André ter Stegen, Barcelona
It is wonderful to see Marc-André ter Stegen, who was the best goalkeeper in the world back in 2019, returning to top form. Ter Stegen wasn’t as bad as many made it seem in 2020/21 and 2021/22, but it is true that he was playing below his standard as one of the sure-fire, top-three goalkeepers in the world.
Ter Stegen has been right there with Alisson (and Édgar Badía as the darkhorse) in the discussion for the best keeper in Europe this season.
The Barcelona superstar leads all players with an 89.5 save percentage, regularly keeping clean sheets by making a decisive save or two. Ter Stegen is one of the best goalkeepers in the world in one-on-ones.
Fantastic on the ball, ter Stegen has been instrumental to Barcelona owning one of the best defenses in domestic competition in any league.
The former Borussia Mönchengladbach phenom has spent his prime in Manuel Neuer’s shadow, so it is also great to see him getting more plaudits.
1. Thibaut Courtois, Real Madrid
Though Thibaut Courtois hasn’t been quite as good as rival keeper Marc-André ter Stegen or Liverpool’s ace Alisson, the Belgian superstar has still been one of the very best goalkeepers of the 2022/23 season.
Courtois isn’t making as many stunning stops in 2022/23, but that shouldn’t change the fact that the 2021/22 Champions League winner, who pulled off one of the greatest keeper performances in a Champions League Final, is still the best in the world.
It’s a status he achieved late in his career with Chelsea before moving to Madrid, and it is a status he returned to a couple of years ago in the Spanish capital after weathering a very difficult personal storm to start life at the world’s most pressurized club.
Well, Courtois has more than stood up to the pressure.
He is in the midst of his second season with a save percentage of over 80 percent with Real Madrid. Courtois stopped 81.9 percent of the shots he faced in 2020/21 and is currently at 81.5 in 2022/23.
In 2019/20 when they won the league title for the first time post-Cristiano Ronaldo, he had a save percentage of 79.2, a clean sheet in more than half of his appearances, and fewer than 0.60 goals allowed per 90!
Go watch his penalty saves, his reactions, his improvements on the ball, and his ability to parry high-velocity shots directly to teammates. Courtois is on another level.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.