What is the greatest save you've ever seen live?

New York Times

11 hours ago

This coming Sunday, the winners of the Women's European Championship will be crowned, but perhaps the most iconic moment of the tournament has already been and gone.
It's wasn't a goal nor a celebration, but instead the breathtaking, gravity-defying save pulled off Germany's Ann-Katrin Berger that kept her team alive in their quarter-final encounter with France.
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It was spectacular enough on a TV screen but imagine seeing it in the flesh.
Inspired by Berger's moment of brilliance and the feeling of wonder it evoked, we asked our writers to take a trip down memory lane and wax lyrical about the best goalkeeper saves they've been privileged enough to see live.
Enjoy this list and make sure to share the greatest save you've ever seen in person in the comments section below.
Now, let's start with the save that inspired this collection of treasured stops…
The existential urge that arises when an athlete executes some other-worldly feat is to go full rankings mode. Get out of the pantheon of (insert similar moments here) work backwards and write accordingly.
That didn't happen in St. Jakob-Park after 105 minutes during Germany's Euro 2025 quarter-final win against France. It just simply didn't. And that's because what Ann-Katrin Berger did is simply unquantifiable and unrankable.
Did you see her left arm? The way it effectively abandons its socket and sinews? The way she torqued and adjusted her body mid-scramble/leap? All while being completely and utterly beaten by the ball's arc, its headstart towards her goal? And yet somehow there's power to propel herself upwards despite falling explicitly backwards?
Ann-Katrin Berger 👏pic.twitter.com/385qa0VwCg
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) July 19, 2025
But I want to go back to her arm because all the freeze frames of her save call to mind not any goalkeeper but Odell Beckham Jr. Specifically, 2014 OBJ for the New York Giants against the Dallas Cowboys, the one-handed catch that launched a million others.
That is what we are talking about here: a save that is not really a save but a piece of transcendent sporting artistry that very few, if that, are capable of executing in these masses of bones and muscles we call human bodies.
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Megan Feringa
Stuck perilously in the bottom three at the business end of the season, the arrival of European champions Chelsea at Goodison Park was daunting for Frank Lampard's side.
Nevertheless, Everton managed to get ahead with Richarlison's goal and held on thereafter thanks to a performance by Jordan Pickford that beggared belief.
There were many remarkable stops, including one at point-blank range with his face, but the finest of them all was from Cesar Azpilicueta.
Pickford dived to his right to try to keep out a Mason Mount shot and the ball struck one post before zipping across goal, hitting the other upright and pinballing out to the waiting Chelsea captain.
The Everton keeper had the awareness to crane his neck after his dive, following the trajectory of the ball along the line and realising it had stayed in play. So in a split second, despite regaining his feet in a slightly awkward position that left him facing the crowd not the play, he sprinted across goal in time to be in position to stop Azpilicueta's shot.
It was an eight-yard dash that probably saved his team from a slow march to relegation.
Greg O'Keeffe
'Nigel, give us a goal…' sang the Leeds United fans towards their former hero in the Everton goal.
It was meant in jest, even though Leeds' predicament at the time during the 2003-04 Premier League season was deadly serious. Just three years after reaching the Champions League semi-finals, United were heading for relegation.
Back-to-back wins in early April had brought renewed hope of survival but, still, only another three points against Everton would do if there was to be a great escape. Hence the half-tongue-in-cheek plea to a now 37-year-old Nigel Martyn, sold by a skint Leeds the previous summer. The fans could have saved their voices, as the veteran went on to produce a truly stunning individual display to earn Everton a 1-1 draw.
His best save came after a miscued clearance had found James Milner. The teenager's curled shot was going in all the way until Martyn thrust a big hand skywards to tip the ball wide.
Leeds never recovered, losing their next four games to drop out of the top flight, destined not to return for another 16 years. Martyn, though, rightly remains hugely popular at Elland Road, his name invariably at the very top of any polls to decide their best ever goalkeeper.
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Richard Sutcliffe
It's the World Cup final. Spain, who are trained from infancy in the art of collectively zip-wiring the ball around you, have a penalty.
They are already 1-0 up. It is 69 minutes into the second half and their No 10, Jenni Hermoso, is standing over the ball. This is going in. Until it's not.
Step up, Mary Earps, the 'queen of stops'. Look, this wasn't the best penalty but it was one great save. Earps clamped onto the ball low to her left like it was a car Hermoso had parked in the wrong place — but the bigger moment came next.
England's goalkeeper jumped up and swore like mad. She stuck her tongue out which, along with the industrial language, felt like a rallying cry that boosted a nation and restored belief with 20 minutes to play.
England ultimately lost the final but that sweary save will live on in our hearts forever.
MARY EARPS DENIES JENNI HERMOSO FROM THE SPOT!#FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/Mf5X3FQVLd
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) August 20, 2023
Caoimhe O'Neill
This was not just a superb stop to light up an ordinary game. It was on the big occasion — a major cup final being played at Wembley against a bitter rival. It also ensured Chelsea would lift a trophy.
Chelsea seemed to be cruising to another FA Cup triumph in 2012 when they went 2-0 up early in the second half only for Liverpool substitute Andy Carroll to get a goal back in the 64th minute.
Carroll looked certain to equalise with eight minutes to go. He was picked out by Luis Suarez unmarked at the back post, just four yards out. The striker headed the ball with all his might and from my vantage point in the press box — and basically everyone else's inside the stadium that day — it looked a certain goal.
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However, Petr Cech dived to his right and somehow clawed the ball away, even though it was already behind him, before all of it crossed the line. To add to the drama, the ball came off the underside of the crossbar and was then cleared to safety by Branislav Ivanovic.
Carroll and Suarez had already begun their celebrations and could not believe Cech had denied them. They were not the only ones.
Petr Cech's incredible save in 2012 FA Cup final. One of his best ever? pic.twitter.com/cqmZZpmAo4
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) January 15, 2019
Simon Johnson
It's not usually the marker of a brilliant save, but the most impressive part of Hart's heroic stop in the dying moments of the Manchester Derby back in 2008 was the pace that he showed to get there.
City had been here before — a goal down to their arch-rivals thanks to Wayne Rooney's opener — but few could have anticipated just how close they would come to both nicking a point, and conceding a second, in added on time.
With minutes to go, Joe Hart came up for a corner, and could only watch as Richard Dunne swivelled and stabbed a volleyed effort towards goal, blocked on the line by Patrice Evra and hacked away by John O'Shea. The goalkeeper stayed up for the resulting free kick but was caught miles out of his goal as a terrible back-pass gave Ryan Giggs and Rooney a clear run at City's open goal.
Giggs didn't seem to fancy his chances from range, laying it off for Rooney to cut inside and blast it goalwards from all of 45 yards. But Hart, somehow, made up the ground, punching the ball just wide of the post at full-stretch before clattering into the net.
In the end, it was another dismal derby defeat for City, but the sheer absurdity of the situation — watching in horror as the ball sailed towards the unguarded net, a flash of bright green shooting across the pitch to save it — makes it a game I'll struggle to forget.
Thom Harris
Mexico entered the 2022 World Cup in turmoil. The country had turned against Argentine manager Gerardo 'Tata' Martino and there was little hope that the CONCACAF giants would progress from Group C that featured Poland, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.
But Mexico still had Guillermo 'Memo' Ochoa in goal. He had been spectacular for Mexico at the 2014 and 2018 World Cup finals. His acrobatic reflex saves became part of World Cup lore, often saving Mexico from elimination. But could he do it again in Qatar, during his fifth World Cup at the age of 37? We found out rather quickly.
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In Mexico's opening group-stage match against Poland at Doha's Stadium 974, Ochoa danced on his line as he stared down Polish striker Robert Lewandowski. The match was scoreless when Poland were awarded a penalty in the 56th minute, in a match that had all the makings of a 1-0 affair.
A Lewandowski conversion would surely have demoralised a Mexican side that was already under fire back home but the Poland great had struggled to score for his country on the biggest stage. Ochoa, on the other hand, relished the limelight. When Ochoa dove to his left and blocked Lewandowski's penalty, the roar inside the stadium was deafening. Ochoa had done it again.
It was another masterclass from a World Cup legend. Mexico later crashed out in the group stage, proving that hope is futile, but Ochoa's class is timeless.
Video for UK readers
Video for U.S. readers
Felipe Cardenas
Goalkeepers are often peppered with balls from different angles, high to low, left to right, in training. The aim of the game is to get your body from a lying position to standing as quickly as possible.
But rarely do you see such reactions in matches.
In last year's FA Cup Manchester derby semi-final, Yui Hasegawa hit a beauty of a free kick right on the edge of the penalty arc.
Manchester United's Phallon Tullis-Joyce did so well to dive to the right and get a firm hand on the shot to tip the ball onto the bar, but she was down on the ground.
The rebound fell right in front of City's Lily Murphy. Surely she would score but up popped the USWNT goalkeeper in a flash.
Somehow, she had the balance and strength to stick her left leg out and clear Murphy's header.
United's No 1, usually so calm and measured, pumped her arms and let out a roar. 'LET'S GO!!!'
United won 2-0, sending them through to their third consecutive FA Cup final.
Charlotte Harpur
It was almost the end of a century and, for Walsall, it was an age of possibility.
They were back in the second tier of English football for the first time in over a decade and only the fourth time in their history and, having upset all of the odds in the previous season to beat big-spending Manchester City and win promotion alongside even-bigger-spending Fulham, a team made up largely of other clubs' cast-offs was making a decent fist of batting to stay there.
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Collecting something from Swindon, who began the day bottom, was vital for a Walsall team two places and two points above them and, after a young midfielder called Michael Carrick (whatever happened to him?) had scored for Swindon to cancel out Darren Wrack's opener for Walsall, Jimmy Walker clinched the visitors a point in dramatic fashion in stoppage time.
Grainy YouTube footage does not do it justice. As Iffy Onuora fired in a shot from a rebound off the frame of the goal, Walker already looked beaten, the ball seemingly past him, yet somehow he managed to react and claw it away.
Walsall ended up relegated on the final day of the season but the fight to avoid the drop was epic and Walker's role in it helped cement his legend at Bescot.
This young reporter from a weekly newspaper, given the chance to cover a club he had watched from the terraces a couple of years earlier, has never forgotten that moment.
Steve Madeley
These days, heroic failure rather than tangible results is the steady feed that fuels Republic of Ireland fans, nine years on since they last tasted the delicacies of major tournament football.
All the usual ingredients were on show when then-world champions France came to Dublin in March 2023 for a European Championship qualifier. A resolute defensive display, undone by a moment of quality — this time a long-range Benjamin Pavard strike — followed by an earnest yet limited effort to equalise.
But when awarded a last-minute corner, murmurings of belief echoed around the Aviva Stadium. This turned to cacophonous expectation when Nathan Collins connected perfectly with Josh Cullen's whipped delivery, powerfully guiding it towards the top right corner from just outside the six-yard box.
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Then a clawing hand appeared. Mike Maignan, with body and fingertips fully outstretched, legs splayed mid-air, reached behind his body to miraculously keep out the Irish captain's effort.
'I thought I had done everything,' said Collins post-match. He had, but Maignan's lightning reflexes meant it was yet another gut-wrenching, last-gasp rug-pull for the Irish faithful.
Conor O'Neill
Last season, Matz Sels conjured up a truly remarkable save to keep out Brighton & Hove Albion's Danny Welbeck, when he dived full length to get the slightest of touches to a shot that was bound for the top corner, steering it onto the crossbar.
This Sels stop against Brighton is up for @PremierLeague Save of the Month. 🧤
Vote now! 👇
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) March 6, 2025
But the Nottingham Forest keeper had pulled off an even better one during the 2023-24 campaign. When Darwin Nunez connected powerfully with a corner, his header already looked to be beyond Sels' reach, but he somehow stretched out a hand with remarkable speed and strength to swat it away from goal, right on the line, before gathering the ball into his grasp.
The fact that the ball also seemed to take a deflection off Murillo only made his effort even harder to read — and the save all the more impressive.
Matz Sels' incredible save against Liverpool! 🧤💥 pic.twitter.com/zLlnLJydbH
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 12, 2024
Sels has been the most influential keeper at Forest since Brice Samba, who produced penalty shootout heroics against Sheffield United in the Championship play-off semi-final as the club plotted a course to promotion in 2022.
Paul Taylor