STUMP STORY OF THE DAY
A late-night GOALIE CLINIC! The Duo You Didn’t Think You’d Read About!
What a day for goalkeeping! Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida Panthers) and Patrick Sequeira (Costa Rica) put on absolute clinics last night!
Monday, June 25th should go down in the books as one that all young goalies come back to see what to strive for. Talk about one of the most underrated positions in all of sports. When things don’t go a team’s way, the goalie can be the easy target.
On the other side when a team wins it’s always the goal scorer who makes the front page. Yesterday we saw two instances of goalkeepers but the team on their back and say we’re not losing this game.
Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida Panthers)
The Panthers are now champions, and you don’t get to the top of the mountain without a stud in goal. This entire postseason Bobrovsky has been on fire. He’s had two shutouts and 5 games in which he allowed only one goal.
Yesterday in the biggest game of his life, and with Connor McDavid and the Oilers trying to fulfill what seemed to be their destiny in a comeback, Bobrovsky held strong. It seemed like every other minute in the final period there was a scrum right in front of the Panthers net where Edmonton seemed like a goal was certain. He stood strong in net and now he is a champion.
With this run, the 35-year-old has certainly become one of the best in the world and if it wasn’t for Connor McDavid’s insane postseason, he would have certainly won the Conn Smythe (Postseason MVP) Award.
Patrick Sequeira (Costa Rica)
Looking at international soccer as a whole, Brazil is one of the most storied countries of all time, and even today they are a powerhouse and one of the favorites to win this year’s COPA America! Heading into their match yesterday against Costa Rica, they were -1200 favorites (Costa Rica was +4200 to win and a draw was +1000). What this all means is that Brazil was a very heavy favorite. They were expected to win this match by 3 goals.
Enter Patrick Sequeira, the goalkeeper for Costa Rica! You would have thought this matchup was in Patrick’s backyard with the confidence he was playing with. No fear!
Patrick plays for Ibiza in Spain’s third division of soccer. This is the equivalent of a G-League player in the NBA starting in the postseason for a playoff team…and facing off against the Celtics.
The 25-year-old gave the Brazillian national team fits all night. The shots breakdown in the game was 19 for Brazil and 3 for Costa Rica. And the possession battle was 74% to 26%. Brazil was the enforcers all night yet in a shocking upset they couldn’t get one in the back of the bin!
The beauty of these two stories is this…
It doesn’t matter if you are one of the best goalies at the highest Hockey level in the world or for one of the smallest soccer clubs in Spain. When your number is called and you are asked to perform at the biggest of stages, it comes to heart.
The Panthers won and Sergei was the first one after captain Aleksander Barkov to hold the Stanley Cup.
Sequeira on the other hand was the unanimous man of the match after their draw against Brazil.
Not often do you hear about goalkeeping clinics, but yesterday we had two of them. Here are the highlights from both games if you wanted to check it out!
Panthers-Oilers: LINK
Costa Rica-Brazil: LINK
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