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Sirigu still looking to establish himself among pantheon of world's best goalkeepers

Reuters

Paris Saint-Germain have not arrived in ideal shape for their Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is suspended, and so too are Marco Verratti – who scored in the Ligue 1 side’s group stage victory over the Catalans last September – and Serge Aurier. Thiago Motta will definitely miss out due to injury, while the same could be true of David Luiz.

For a team who would have been considered as underdogs at full strength for this fixture, that is a lot of adversity to bear. But if Laurent Blanc were seeking solace, he might find it at either end of the pitch. Up front, PSG still have Edinson Cavani, the team’s leading scorer in Europe so far this season. 

And as a last line of defence, they still have Salvatore Sirigu

The man who started Italy’s only World Cup win last summer has had a profitable year. He was feted for his saves in that 2-1 victory over England, with one or two columnists even pondering whether he ought to keep his place ahead of Gigi Buffon once the latter had recovered from an ankle injury. Three months later, PSG rewarded Sirigu with a three-year contract extension that raised his gross salary to a reported €4.6 million per season.

It was enough to make him one of the richest goalkeepers in the world. And yet even he has seemed uncertain of whether he deserves to be considered as one of the best. "I don’t know if I even get into the top 10," Sirigu replied last summer, when asked where he would rank himself. "I’m not interested either. I think that I give everything I have every day. A person can feel satisfied when they have given everything."

The statistics for this Champions League campaign do not flatter him. Sirigu’s saves-to-goals-conceded ratio is the worst of any starting goalkeeper left in the tournament. This, though, is a detail to take with a pinch of salt. The sample size is small, and not all shots were created equal. Sirigu conceded five goals during his two group games against Barcelona, but would any keeper, for instance, have kept out Neymar’s spectacular 25-yarder at the Camp Nou? 

Buffon, for one, has no doubts about Sirigu’s quality. Before that England game, he told the PSG player that he was happy to have such a talented individual replacing him. Indeed, Buffon has previously claimed to see something of himself in Sirigu – telling reporters after they first trained together with the national team that, "I was marveling at how similar to me he is."

If Sirigu has been grateful for such votes of confidence then nowadays he would prefer to be judged on his own terms. "When I was young, being compared to Buffon made me happy," he told L’Equipe in December. "I would actually get upset when somebody else got that honour instead of me. But since then there have been at least 20-25 goalkeepers who have been compared to Buffon. I’ve had my fill. Buffon is still Buffon."

A hint of frustration here would be understandable. As long as Buffon continues to excel into his late 30s, it will be difficult for Sirigu to establish himself as the best goalkeeper from his country, let alone in the world. He has started three further games for Italy since the World Cup, but suggestions that he might supplant his Juventus counter-part in the first-choice XI have completely evaporated.

Anyone who has watched Sirigu play regularly in Paris over these last four years will already know that he is a reliable shot-stopper and steady commander of his area. Yes, he still makes the occasional blunder – the calamitous own goal he scored against Lille in December is a case in point – but even Manuel Neuer is not immune to those.

The items missing from Sirigu’s resume are instead the sorts of iconic performances that built Buffon’s reputation in the first place. He needs to show that he can be not just a safe pair of hands but a match-winner. Not only in Ligue 1, where his team is expected to win most weeks regardless, but in Europe, against opponents with comparable resources at their disposal. 

At 28 years old, Sirigu should still have many years left ahead of him but we are past the point at which he could be described as a coming talent. He is a good player, but one whose wage packet suggests that he ought to be more than that. 

Nights like this one offer the opportunity to become great.

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