Chelsea Keeper Courtois: Stepping up

For any goalkeeper, making the saves required to help your team win a penalty shoot-out is a special feeling. Having such a direct impact on the outcome of a game is rare for those whose best work is done between the posts.
But what is even rarer for the man with the gloves is to score the winning goal in a game, either during normal time or from 12 yards. Against Paris Saint-Germain last night, Thibaut Courtois experienced all these emotions and more during what was only the second-ever penalty shoot-out he has contested as a professional football player.
‘Of course I enjoyed it,’ a visibly excited Courtois told the official Chelsea website after the game.
‘There were 60,000 people in the stadium, and even if it wasn’t the Champions League final there was still a little bit of pressure. It’s important to feel that and I felt confident to shoot.
‘I practice taking very strong shots in training sometimes with Jamal Blackman. We play some games after training and penalty kicks are part of it. I just thought I would shoot strong and even if the goalkeeper went to the correct side he would not get it.
‘The manager and Christophe [Lollichon, the goalkeeping coach] asked me to shoot one in the first five and I said if there’s a space open I would do it. Five people stepped up so it was no problem but I said if we needed one more to win I would take it. So I think I would have taken the sixth penalty if we had a chance to win it then.’
Courtois’ penalty was the first goal he has ever scored as a professional, and his first of any kind since he was 15. His spot-kick was about as emphatic as they come; it would certainly be no exaggeration to say it whizzed past PSG’s Salvatore Sirigu before he could move.
He is still yet to compete in a competitive shoot-out but yesterday’s experience will do him no harm as and when that time comes, as he explained.
‘I have done one penalty shoot-out before as a professional, for Atletico also in a pre-season game. There were just five penalties and we lost, so it’s nice to win one now.
‘It’s good to practice doing one in a game as well. In front of nearly a full stadium in a game is quite different to doing it in training.
‘Normally we prepare very well for the opposition takers but because there were a lot of young kids on the pitch I tried to read them.'
And what was going through his mind when the seven PSG players prepared to try and beat our Belgian?