Book Review: ‘A Life Too Short – The Tragedy of Robert Enke’ by Ronald Reng, on the life of the late German goalkeeper Robert Enke.
The goalkeeper stands with his hands on his hips, an abject sign of loneliness as the scoreboard lights up saying that the one team has gone four nil up. It’s not his team – just moments before, the defense in front of him had seen it fit to ensure that he faced a penalty he couldn’t save.
Robert Enke could only stand and wonder what he did wrong – across the week, another 11 goals would go past him into the back of the net. And by the end of the season, his team would have been relegated and he would have left for greener pastures. Such is life when one is young and discovering the harshness of the world.
Camus, the famous writer and an ex-goalkeeper, once mentioned that the goalkeepers are the outsiders in football. Never involved in the action until the last second, but that last second is critical to the outcome of the game. In a paradoxical way, the goalkeeper is the most important yet most useless person on the football field.