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Between them, this year’s nominees for best men’s goalkeeper accrued 154 clean sheets across 2025/26. Three of them won league crowns while half of them were voted into their respective league’s team of the year.
A rich and varied trophy haul accumulated by this tremendous ten included an African Cup of Nations, as well as Champions League and AFC Champions League triumphs.
In July, Unai Simon lifted aloft the World Cup.
Staying with that tournament, seven of the 2026 nominees played significant minutes in the Americas, keeping 16 clean sheets combined.
Four of them reached the quarter-final stage and beyond.
We are therefore talking about elite fare who collectively have amassed a welter of high achievements. Individually too, they have shone so brightly.
Yassine Bounou – The African trailblazer
The 35-year-old’s performances at the World Cup brought widespread acclaim, not least because the Al-Hilal keeper extended on his remarkable penalty saving record at the tournament.
Including shoot-outs, Bounou has now faced nine spot-kicks at a World Cup. Only two have gone in.
A brace of clean sheets meanwhile means he has been responsible for the most ever shut-outs at the tournament by an African goalkeeper (5).
In October 2025, the former Sevilla stopper broke another meaningful record, playing a pivotal role in Morocco attaining an unprecedented 16 consecutive international victories.
Thibaut Courtois – The right path taken
The 2022 winner of this award once again stood imperious between the sticks for Real Madrid last season, keeping clean sheets in 34.2% of his league outings. In La Liga across 2025/26 his imposing frame was breached every 102 minutes.
Such impressive figures have become the norm for the Belgian who has amassed a list of individual accolades nearly as long as his enormous wingspan over the course of 17 years at the top.
Yet, none of these garlands would have occurred had Courtois followed his heart as a youngster and exclusively pursued a career in volleyball.
That was the path his sister Valérie took, representing her country at the sport. His brother Gaëtan also followed his parents, semi-professional volleyball players both.
A Ballon d’Or nominee five times over, Courtois grew up in a household where the backyard was made entirely of sand so that the family could regularly practice what was his primary passion.
Édouard Mendy – From struggle to success
A runner-up in this award in 2021, Mendy’s journey to fame and acclaim is the stuff of Hollywood. Read about it here..
An AFC Champions League Elite triumph with Al-Ahli last year means the 34-year-old is the first goalkeeper to win the Champions League in both Asia and Europe and his latter glory is well worth recalling.
Bolstering Chelsea to continental success in 2021, Mendy saved 32 out of 35 shots on target, ultimately registering a 91.4% save percentage that remains a tournament record.
Unai Simon – Loyalty repaid
A poor season by Athletic Bilbao in 2025/26 saw them finish 12th in La Liga and concede 58 goals, more than two of the clubs who endured relegation.
Perhaps it was for this reason why some questioned Luis de la Fuente’s decision to stick with Simon as his first choice as Spain ventured into last summer’s World Cup. Certainly it was no reflection on the Bilbao keeper, a runner-up in this award in 2024, and a Euro winner with La Roja, no less.
De la Fuente, for his part, responded in typically bullish fashion, saying,
“It would be unfair if we didn’t value Unai Simon’s quality, class, career, and professional experience. It would be absurd for me to have to come here and reaffirm it. When a goalkeeper is at this level, you have to respect his standing and his career.”
Simon repaid his national coaches’ loyalty ten-fold by putting in a series of superb World Cup performances, going 491 minutes without conceding until Belgium eventually found a way through in the quarter-finals.
Gregor Kobel – Swiss security
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The keeper’s heroics throughout Borussia Dortmund’s 2023/24 Champions League campaign considerably elevated his standing beyond Germany.
As Die Borussen navigated an unexpected path to the final social media became ablaze with clips of Kobel pulling off one wonder-save after another.
Defying xG every other Wednesday earned the Zurich-born custodian a reputation for the spectacular, a repute that was warranted for sure, but one that failed to get to the core of Kobel who, in fact, errs far more towards the pragmatic in his methodology.
The 28-year-old is routinely measured, depending on anticipation over reaction, while with the ball at his feet he is a study in reliability.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than in an early appearance for the A-Team, posting a flawless 100% record in his passing data when away to Serbia.
Joan Garcia – A pedigree of saves
The Spanish international has been nominated for the first time after executing a series of exceptional displays for Barcelona as the Blaugrana secured a 29th La Liga title.
From a high volume of stops one particular save is vivid in the memory, a miraculous tip over the bar from close range against his former club Espanyol in January 2026.
Correctly predicting the ball’s flightpath Garcia is almost waiting for it, in suspended animation mid-air. It was deservedly voted La Liga’s save of the season.
The Espanyol players showed visible exasperation in the moment, but no surprise. They knew what Garcia was capable of.
The season earlier, before moving across Catalonia, he made a league-high 146 saves for the Parakeets.
Vozinha – Viral sensation
Captaining Cape Verde to their first ever World Cup last summer, the 40-year-old reserved his greatest performance for his biggest moment, a synchronicity that so rarely occurs.
Registering seven saves against the tournament’s eventual winners Spain on route to a famous draw, Voinha won the hearts and minds of a watching world.
This was duly reflected in the Colo-Colo keeper swiftly becoming a social media phenomenon, his Instagram account gaining followers at a rate of knots.
Within 24 hours, Vozinha went from having 50,000 followers to 25 million.
Matvey Safonov – Patience and academia
As the article below illustrates, patience has been the byword throughout the Russian’s career.
Summer after summer, rumours would arise about leading clubs being interested in procuring the talented Krasnodar stopper yet nothing ever came of it.
When he did finally get his dream move, he was immediately installed as second choice at PSG, behind Gianluigi Donnarumma, a two-time winner of the men’s Goalkeeper of the Year Ballon d’Or.
Now he is a Champions League winner with the Parisien giants, and a nominee in his own right, yet even this remarkable rise is not the most fascinating detail about Safonov.
A math and chess prodigy as a child, he combined his football in later life with a bachelor’s degree, studying pedagogy, psychology and communication.
David Raya – The shut-out king
Since moving to Arsenal from Brentford in the summer of 2023, Raya has claimed the Premier League Golden Glove season after season. His last individual triumph helped the Gunners win a first league title for 22 years.
When breaking down the numbers from those trio of outstanding campaigns what becomes evident is Raya’s immense importance to Mikel Arteta’s side, in addition to his calibre.
To the conclusion of 2025/26, the Spaniard made 107 league outings for Arsenal, keeping clean sheets in 44.8% of them.
Furthermore, he conceded just 84 goals, which equates to a goal every 114.6 minutes.
Emi Martinez – The protracted phenom
Dubbed a ’10-year overnight success’, Argentina’s charismatic shot-stopper excelled in six separate loan spells in the English lower-leagues before establishing himself among the elite.
He has subsequently won this award twice-over – in 2023 and 2024 – and won the Golden Glove at a World Cup finals and two Copa Americas.
His penalty record on the international stage meanwhile is quite something, conceding only half of the 22 spot-kicks he has faced.
