One of many goalkeepers signed by Manchester United who ended up playing very little, Ricardo Lopez spent three years contracted at Old Trafford, playing just 45 minutes of league football for the Red Devils and an other 290 minutes in the Champions League.
Let go in 2005 on a free transfer to Osasuna, the 45-year-old is now a goalkeeping coach, and Mundo Deportivo caught up with him ahead of the World Cup to discuss a certain David De Gea.
A few days ago, France Football published an article where they asked five former goalkeepers who they thought was the best in the role currently, and the Manchester United star finished a surprising seventh, behind Keylor Navas.
With José Mourinho recently claiming that his number one goalkeeper was the best in the world, Ricardo decided to give his two cents when asked if that was the case.
He said: “The World Cup will judge if he is or not, but he isn’t yet. He lacks experience, great games and trophies to consider him as such, but he’s on his way. Either way, I don’t like to individualise because football is a team sport, and without the rest of the team you can’t do anything”.
However, that doesn’t mean the former Manchester United doesn’t rate the Spain number one, revealing he felt Sir Alex Ferguson was ‘far from wrong’ to miss one of his side’s games to scout the goalkeeper.
He continued: “De Gea is different because he has such a wide wingspan, is agile, has coordination and seems very clam, which gives confidence to the rest of the team”.
As for what he can do to improve even further, Ricardo feels the Manchester United number one needs to work on his distribution and his presence in the area.
Either way, the Old Trafford faithful are pretty happy with their guy between the sticks.
No matter where he comes in any ranking.
