Is Gianluigi Donnarumma the best goalkeeper in the world?

Before the final of the last Euros, Gianluca Vialli gave a speech. He did so in the honorary role of head of the delegation to the Italian national team, which he interpreted as culture architect. Vialli had been invited to perform it by Roberto Mancini, his great friend and former teammate who was then serving as the coach. In the build-up to Italy’s game against England at Wembley, the inspiring figure read from Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena.

“It is not the critic who counts,” Vialli told the players, “Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

Goalkeepers, as Vialli’s successor in the role, Gigi Buffon, knows from experience, tend to feel greater responsibility than anyone else on the pitch. They are the last man. They are a lightning rod for criticism. Gianluigi Donnarumma appreciates this too. After hearing Vialli’s speech, he went out and saved penalties from Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka in the shoot-out that decided the final. Afterwards, UEFA presented Donnarumma with the player of the tournament award. He was the first goalkeeper to win it since Peter Schmeichel in 1992. The accolade largely passed unobserved, unlike, for instance, Jorginho’s candidacy for the Ballon d’Or that year, which generated far more debate.

Donnarumma deserved his prize. It wasn’t only in the final he proved decisive. He had stopped Alvaro Morata in the shoot-out at the end of the semi-final too. It was the summer of the Notti Magiche (or Magical Nights) and, throughout, the critic didn’t count to Donnarumma. He had gone into the tournament out of contract and under heavy scrutiny. AC Milan’s owners at the time, Elliott, had inherited the deal Donnarumma signed as an 18-year-old. It made him the highest-paid player in Serie A on a salary of €6million (£5m, $6.4m) a year. Mino Raiola, his late agent, thought he deserved double and Paris Saint-Germain agreed. Milan, acting under great financial discipline, weren’t prepared to go that high but made him an improved offer and leaned on the fact that they were Donnarumma’s boyhood club.

The new terms they sent weren’t accepted, however, and so, that May, Milan moved to replace him with Mike Maignan from Lille instead. “In an ideal world, I believe a footballer’s only motivation should be passion,” said Paolo Maldini, a one-club man and Milan’s technical director at the time. “But if your goal is also to social climb and provide for your family who tightened their belts for you during your childhood, well, those are motivations too and they’re to be understood and respected. To get results and status in this game, sporting motivations are crucial. It can happen that the needs of a player don’t always match those of a club. There are those who choose to wait and those who are in a hurry. It’s not for me to judge.”

And yet Maldini left the distinct impression that, by going to PSG, Donnarumma would not get the recognition his talent deserves. Why else has Kylian Mbappe spent the last three years feeling he needs to move to Real Madrid? The image of Donnarumma as Dollarumma, first articulated when he signed his first big contract at Milan in 2017, crystallised.

(Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)

Donnarumma’s part in winning the Euros, and Italy’s success as a whole, was soon forgotten. A match calendar congested by Covid-19 meant the games came thick and fast. Within nine months of a hero’s welcome in Rome to exalt in the triumph at the Euros, Donnarumma was made one of the scapegoats for Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar. He was adjudged to have been at fault for Aleksandar Trajkovski’s 90th-minute winner in the play-off semi-final against North Macedonia in Palermo. Italy would not have needed a play-off had Jorginho converted penalties in Bern and Rome against Switzerland, who qualified at their expense. 

In the meantime, Milan won the league for the first time in 11 years. It was Maignan’s second title in a row between France and Italy and it often felt like only injuries and Hugo Lloris’s rank as national team captain delayed his establishment as his country’s No 1. It did not reflect well on Donnarumma. 

When Luciano Spalletti replaced Mancini as coach of Italy nine months ago, his first big decision was to stand by his goalkeeper. There were calls for Spalletti to drop Donnarumma for Guglielmo Vicario after his first game, when Italy were forced to play North Macedonia all over again in a Euro qualifier in Skopje. Going into the final 10 minutes, an Enis Bardhi free-kick went straight through Donnarumma and Italy could only draw. Automatic qualification had already been compromised in the twilight of Mancini’s tenure by Italy’s first defeat to England on home soil in 62 years.

Ukraine were next at San Siro, where Donnarumma was guaranteed to be whistled by a large section of the local supporters who, in addition to rooting for their country, also supported AC Milan. Spalletti reacted by strapping the captain’s armband to Donnarumma’s bicep and it has remained there ever since. “Gigio has never been forgiven for being a child prodigy whose talent meant he achieved so much so quickly,” Spalletti said. “The rest of us have to struggle and work hard to get anywhere so when someone else… It’s hard. There are always people around the corner waiting to hit out at you.” 

(Stefano Guidi/Getty Images)

Buffon agreed. The 2006 World Cup winner, who many consider the greatest of all time, said: “To be honest, it’s not that he’s criticised too much. It’s that when he makes a mistake, some people get a certain pleasure out of highlighting it.”

Donnarumma didn’t let the whistles affect him. “They were a disgrace,” Davide Frattesi said after he scored twice in a 2-1 win over the Ukrainians. At full time of the 2-1 win, Vicario ran over and embraced his teammate. As was the case with Buffon’s competitors for a starting place — Francesco Toldo, Angelo Peruzzi, Marco Amelia, Salvatore Sirigu and Federico Marchetti — it will take a force majeure to move Donnarumma from between the sticks.

Overall, he has enjoyed an excellent season with PSG.

Opta’s advanced goalkeeping metrics showed Donnarumma was second (11.53) in Europe’s top five leagues in Goals Prevented, a statistic that measures the number of goals a goalkeeper might be expected to concede based on the quality of chances they faced against the number of goals they actually allowed.

Spalletti has tried to keep him on his toes. In December, when Donnarumma was sent off for an erratic foul outside his box in Le Havre, Spalletti said: “Gigi (Buffon) is always telling me that if he had Gigio’s talent, he’d concede one goal a season! He needs to get a grip on himself, because he shows a lack of continuity from time to time. There is only one way to maintain the level in the long run: train and discipline yourself well mentally.”

As always with goalkeepers, for every 10 goals they stop, one bad performance can eclipse everything else. It can stigmatise a player particularly if it happens in the Champions League and people aren’t following Donnarumma week to week in Ligue 1. He came in for flak for his performance against Barcelona in the quarter-finals, even though PSG still progressed. “It isn’t easy to let the criticism just slide off you, but we have to be professional. You have to stay balanced and be as serene and calm as possible.”

Ever since Donnarumma made his debut as a 16-year-old, his serenity has stood out as much as his physical gifts. “Right now, he’s the best goalkeeper in the world,” Buffon said on the eve of the Euros. “I struggle to see anyone better than Donnarumma. There are times in a season when one goalkeeper might be better than another goalkeeper but along with Thibaut Courtois and the Germans, Manuel Neuer and Marc-Andre ter Stegen, he’s the best of the best.”

And yet outside of Italy, Donnarumma rarely gets name-checked when there are debates about the world’s No 1. Before the Azzurri’s opening game against Albania, a proud Russian journalist wanted to know if Spalletti feared PSG were signing Matvey Safonov from Krasnodar to take Donnarumma’s place. How did he assess the move? “My assessment is if PSG decide to get rid of Donnarumma, he’ll find a better team,” Spalletti said.

Donnarumma, Spalletti and Gianluca Scamacca before the tournament (Claudio Villa/Getty Images)

Safonov, in the meantime, has postured that he hasn’t joined PSG to be anybody’s back-up. But his heart must bleed with every Donnarumma performance at the Euros. Donnarumma hasn’t only been one of the best goalkeepers at the tournament with a Goals Prevented figure of 3.16 — as per Opta data that excludes own goals and includes penalties — he is running Jamal Musiala close as player of the competition. A notable mention here too for Georgia’s Giorgi Mamardashvili, the Valencia goalkeeper who has been outstanding during their run to the last 16. Donnarumma’s last-minute save from Rey Manaj against Albania ensured Italy didn’t let an opening-day victory slip. He then made eight stops against Spain to keep Italy’s dignity intact. “If he hadn’t conceded (an own goal from Riccardo Calafiori), his performance was a 10 out of 10,” Buffon said. In Leipzig on Monday, Donnarumma turned Luka Modric’s penalty away, and the reflexes he showed in the action that led to the veteran midfielder’s goal from open play were also extraordinary.

Still only 25, Donnarumma is the most-capped player in Italy’s squad with 64. He is the youngest skipper since Gianni Rivera in 1965 and is having to fill the leadership void left by Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci. His exploits in Germany have bought Spalletti more time to figure things out with this largely inexperienced team. Over the course of a year in which players like Federico Chiesa have struggled for form, Marco Verratti moved to Qatar, Sandro Tonali picked up a ban for betting on football and players like Domenico Berardi, Giorgio Scalvini, Nicolo Zaniolo and Francesco Acerbi all suffered injuries that ruled them out of the Euros, he has been the one constant. 

“We will try to reproduce those magical nights from three years ago,” Donnarumma said. “I try to give my teammates some advice in terms of what three years ago was all about. But the team are already ready so they won’t necessarily need my advice. But those who are survivors from three years ago, myself, Jorginho and Nicolo Barella, we will certainly give them a few points that will hopefully help us go all the way in this competition.”

(Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

Critics will continue to seize upon Donnarumma’s flaws. They will highlight how he could be better with the ball at his feet. But he should never be omitted from conversations about the best goalkeeper in the world. He is arguably Italy’s only world-class player. “For our fellow countrymen, we are heroes, we are giants,” Spalletti said. “We need to go out there and show them that we are at the level that they believe us to be at. Giants and heroes have no fear.”

At 6ft 5in, Donnarumma is a giant regardless of how he plays. But his displays at this tournament have only caused his stature to grow. To quote Vialli, quoting Roosevelt: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

(Dan Mullan/Getty Images)