The Barcelona goalkeeper Ter Stegen increasingly fragile
In previous seasons Marc-André Ter Stegen was considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world, a position that he held for a long time and was even considered one of the best successes of Andoni Zubizarreta at the head of the FC Barcelona board.
Ter Stegen arrived at Barça as a replacement for Victor Valdés, who was a figure in the Barça team, so it would not be easy to replace him. At the time of his hiring the name of the German was not well known by the public, but he showed all his ability under the goal in the first campaigns with the club, so his ownership was more than safe.
However, that condition that he showed in previous years has been decreasing, so the reliability of the German goalkeeper has decreased this season, so much so that he has been receiving an average of one goal per game, so his ownership is questioned right now.
Decreasing performance
It can be said that the performance of the Barcelona goalkeeper has had a decreasing line in recent times, something very similar to what happens with the team in general. There is no doubt about the capabilities that Ter Stegen has under the goal and to play with his feet, which is very high, something that not every goalkeeper has in his favor.
Despite having these points in his favor, today the German goalkeeper is not offering good results, in the case of saves it is a point that he has been losing little by little, so now he does not see the same security of before. One of the things that are most missed about the goalkeeper are his miraculous saves, those unstoppable saves that made him compare with Iker Casillas, Jan Oblak, Thibaut Courtois or Gianluigi Buffon.
The season in which they have received the most goals to date
Since the start of the 2021-22 season, the German goalkeeper has conceded a total of eight goals in just six games, numbers that were not previously seen in him or in the team. Despite this, things in the league seem to be improving little by little, he has conceded two goals in four games and has managed to leave his goal at zero on two occasions. While in the Champions League he has conceded six goals in two games, against Bayern and Benfica.
The lack of decisive saves in key matches more than anything else has been clearly noted, an example of this has been the first two dates of the European Cup. In Ter Stegen's first season with Barcelona, which was 2014-15, where he shared the goal with Claudio Bravo, who was a starter at the time, the German received 11 goals in 13 Champions League games, where the club ended up raising the fifth European Cup.
In that edition of the cup, only two teams managed to score more than one goal, such as PSG in the group stage and Bayern in the second leg of the semifinal, both games won it 3-2. In that match at the Allianz Arena Ter Stegen had several of his miracles, which are missed today. Perhaps the most important of that night was Lewandowski's shot and with a double intervention that led her to be selected as the save of the competition.
From there the performance of the goalkeeper between the 2014-15 season and the 2019-20, the performance in the European competition was only marked with specific moments, where it was sometimes decisive. In the 2015-16 edition, they only conceded one goal until they faced Atlético, in the second leg of the semifinal, where they lost 2-0 and were eliminated.
In the 2017-18 campaign, they received 12 goals in nine games, three of them were scored by Manchester City, four by PSG in the first leg of the round of 16 where they achieved the historic comeback 6-1, and three goals in the first leg against Juventus who eliminated them after drawing 0-0 at the Camp Nou.
During the following years, the bad moments and the humiliations for the club grew, one of them when they were defeated by Roma 3-0 in the second leg of the quarterfinals, a 4-0 against Liverpool in the second leg of the semifinal and 2-8 against Bayern in the quarterfinals. While PSG and Juve endorsed him 1-4 and 3-0, which meant his prelude to elimination from the European Cup.
Today he faces Atlético de Madrid at Wanda for another day of the Santander League. The last meeting between the two ended with a victory for the rojiblancos when a mistake by Pique after a bad start by Ter Stegen condemned the defeat of Barcelona the previous season.
