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Valero shared with us his thoughts about Fabiański, admitting that the Pole is one of the four best goalkeepers currently in the Premier League...
On Saturday, "Fabian" as he is nicknamed in Poland, wil play his last game for Poland, vs San Marino.
Piotr Koźmiński, WP SportoweFakty: Many goalkeepers, including Łukasz Fabiański, say that you are very demanding in your work, you want more and more from them and they are glad because you ultimately make them better. From your point is it easy or difficult to work with Fabiański?
Xavi Valero, ex-goalkeeping coach in such clubs like Liverpool, Inter Milan, Napoli, Real Madrid, now West Ham United: It is very easy to work with Łukasz. Because he is fully professional, his work ethic is very high, he always wants to improve, is very self critical, loves to analyse things and demands a lot from himself. He cares about his body as a true professional football player. Some goalies, I had to push harder, but this is not the case for Łukasz. It is a pleasure to work with him.
Speaking about his character. He is very calm, yet some say goalkeepers should be a little bit crazy. What do you think?
I think it is a kind of old school saying. Indeed, some used to say that it is good if a goalkeeper has a crazy character, but I don’t think it is a common opinion in modern football. I think it is now the opposite. The best keeper is that one who knows how to react in a rational way, who knows how to raise belief in himself among his team mates. An ideal goalkeeper takes decisions based on an analysis of the game situation, not on his emotions. And Fabiański is like this! So in my opinion he has very good character for modern, very good goalkeeper.
Fabiański is 36 years old now. Can a goalkeeper still improve at such age or it is rather about keeping the level he has achieved?
I think both. From one side you must work to keep your level, but there is always room for improvement. Actually I am not looking at all at age. I am not looking at a goalkeeper’s passport. I am looking at his performance, his attitude. I think this is like in normal life. We are learning from our first days until we die. No matter whether you are 20, 50 or 80 years old – you can still learn. But it depends on you. There are 20 year-olds who don’t want to learn anymore, and there are old ones who still want to. Definitely, Łukasz is the one who still wants to improve. I would say that in the last years he evaluated, he became even better. We can see it at West Ham. He is at the top level because he is still hungry.
What do you like in him the most? Speaking about pure football qualities now…
He is a complete goalkeeper. I mean that he can do well in any aspect of the game. He has lots of experience at the top level for many years. He knows how to distribute the ball, how to play in the air, how to save shots from long and short distance. What is more he is technically good. I think this is often the case for goalkeepers from Eastern Europe. For decades they have shown they are technically good. All these factors lead to the fact that Fabiański seldom makes mistakes. He is very consistent in his shape, the team can have confidence in him because we know it is not often when we see Łukasz doing things wrong. And he plays in best league in the world, the most difficult league for a goalkeeper.
How do you rank Fabiański amongst the Premier League goalkeepers?
I would put him into the top 4.
Who besides him then?
For sure, two from the giant clubs: Alisson from Liverpool and Ederson from Manchester City. They proved in the last few years in England they deserve to be mentioned. And third… I would recognize Mendy’s efforts. He really impressed. He moved from France to Chelsea not so long ago and quickly proved his qualities. And I think Łukasz deserves to be mentioned in the top 4.
Fabiański is 36 years old but, for example, Legia Warsaw fans praise Artur Boruc, who is 41 years old and continues to play very well. Do you think that Łukasz can play at high level for…
For a long time yet. I have no doubts. Looking at his fitness, his attitude, his mentality, I think he can play several seasons at the highest level yet. Including international football, too. Lets look at Pepe Reina, who I had the chance to work with in the past. Now he is 39 years old and plays very well for Lazio. Or Buffon. Definitely, if Łukasz wants it, because it is also a personal decision, there is a long way ahead of him yet.
One thing he definitely improved on in recent years is saving penalties. He did not save any in two penalty shootouts during EURO 2016, and was even crying during a TV interview, offering his apologies for this. Yet in the following years he saved decent number. Is it possible to explain?
Speaking about penalties, there are two factors important for a goalkeeper. One is his instinct and second is the information he is given. We at West Ham pay lot of attention to that. Before every match we offer our goalkeepers knowledge of how opponents tend to take penalties. It is useful, but of course it is not enough. Because we can analyse the ten last penalties from Lewandowski, but we are never sure how he is going to take number eleven. Yet, we have some information, some tendency from previous shots and then the goalkeeper decides… I think that these two factors must work together. No single instinct, nor single piece of nformation is enough to help goalkeeper in a longer way - just the combination of the two. And I think it is also Łukasz’s case that naturally he is very quick goalkeeper. So having more experience, natural instinct and speed, plus the information provided, that can be the base of a saved penalty.
Did he surprise you with his decision to not play for Poland anymore?
Such decision is always based on many reasons, maybe not purely footballing ones. This is actually not a question for me, it is more for Fabiański. But I can say that, in theory, he could still play international football for quite a long while…
The truth is that, in Poland, some say that Wojciech Szczęsny was almost always privileged, and Łukasz had to wait for his chance. I guess you know Szczęsny too. How would you compare the two keepers?
They are different, but I have respect for both of them because they have played at high level for so many years. More generally speaking, Poland has a goalkeeper “factory”: Boruc, Fabiański, Szczęsny, Skorupski, Drągowski, Majecki - plenty of them… But coming back to your question: from what I have observed I would say Szczęsny is more emotional in goal and Fabiański is calmer.
You worked, mainly with Rafael Benitez, for many big clubs. Do you remember if any of them wanted to bring in a Polish goalkeeper at that time? If so, for sure you would know about it…
When we started to work in Napoli, we had Fabiański on our list. We were sure he coukd do well in Italy, too. As their goalkeeper was leaving, we were looking for a new number one. Łukasz was a strong candidate, but we opted finally for Pepe Reina because we knew him already from Liverpool, he was available on the market, and so on… Then later I observed, whilst already working for West Ham, [Radosław] Majecki as a goalkeeper for the future. But we just followed him, and no official approach was made. Finally he moved to AS Monaco. As I said before, in Poland you have a top class tradition as far as goalkeepers are concerned, and Łukasz is fantastic proof of it!
