Courtois, Neuer, Buffon: Champions League’s 13 greatest goalkeeper performances ever

Thibaut Courtois put on a goalkeeping clinic to ensure Real Madrid beat Liverpool to lift the 2022 Champions League title.

Breaking a record set back in 2003/04, the Belgian made nine saves to shut out Liverpool in an incredible individual performance that rallied his side and pushed them over the line for a 14th time in the competition.

Seriously, Courtois was unbeatable in the Stade de France. Claiming crosses, shutting down angles, or even going full stretch to tip shots around his posts, there wasn’t anything that was too much to ask of him as he flew around his box to deny onslaughts throughout the evening.

While the critics will say Liverpool should’ve done better with their finishing, there’s only so much you can do when every shot on goal is being gathered or patted away by the man between the sticks, seemingly with ease.

It’s goalkeeper performances like this that keep teams alive in the biggest games on the footballing calendar, but are almost always the most overlooked, which goalkeepers are unfortunately used to at this point.

So, in an attempt to break the chain of only noticing poor goalkeeper performances, we at GIVEMESPORT have pulled together a list of some of the finest displays between the sticks in the history of the Champions League, off the back of Courtois’ 2022 final heroics.

In the final game of his playing career – aged 40, by the way – Van der Sar couldn’t inspire Manchester United to take revenge on Barcelona for the 2009 Champions League final defeat.

That wasn’t a reflection on his game, though, which was about as good as it could be in the 3-1 defeat. The Dutchman made a good account of himself once again, making eight saves in his last outing as a player.

Sir Alex Ferguson already had