Van der Sar, 40 years old, is 197cm tall and weighs 83kg. Although he is already "old", his reaction is still very fast.

The goalkeeper position does indeed become better with age.

However, at the age of 40, he can still hold the starting goalkeeper position of a top team. Looking around the world, there are probably only two people who can do it. One is the Dutch goalkeeper Van der Sar, and the other is the Italian youngster Buffon.

Van der Sar is a goalkeeper.

The so-called goalkeeper type can be both a goalkeeper and a half defender.

Van der Sar's defensive range, reaction speed and passing ability are absolutely world-class.

Moreover, Van der Sar has gone through ups and downs, and has become stronger over time, and has extremely rich experience on the field.

Like Scholes, Van der Sar has already confirmed that he will retire after the end of the 2010-2011 season.

Although this game will not be his last as the main goalkeeper, for the avid Manchester United fans, it is indeed one less game to watch.

Similar to Evra and Rio Ferdinand, Van der Sar also had an attacking heart when he was playing football as a child.

Van der Sar originally played as a striker, but he grew too fast, so he was transformed into a goalkeeper by the coach of the youth team.

This is also the starting point of Van der Sar as a door-guard goalkeeper.

It has to be said that Van der Sar's transformation was much luckier than Evra's, and even luckier than Rio Ferdinand.

Van der Sar's transformation took almost no effort and everything came naturally. In contrast, Evra suffered a lot of injuries, fell into self-doubt, and almost gave up playing football. Rio Ferdinand also went through many twists and turns and finally joined West Ham United's youth team before he began the painful transformation process.

Although all three of them are world-class now, Van der Sar is obviously luckier than Evra and Rio Ferdinand.

Of course, Van der Sar had to start from scratch to change from a striker to a goalkeeper, and as he practiced, he couldn't help but rush out with the ball and use himself as a striker.

Before the age of 20, Van der Sar was not very good at the goalkeeper position. If you compare him before the age of 20 with Casillas before the age of 20, Van der Sar is completely incomparable.

However, Van der Sar was very lucky. His youth training team was the star-making factory Ajax, and the coach of Ajax at the time was Van Gaal, a chef famous for his ability to judge people.

The same surname Fan...

Okay, his last name is not Van, but Louis van Gaal does have a fondness for Van der Sar.

Moreover, Van Gaal is also well-known for promoting young players, and Van der Sar at that time happened to be a young and energetic player.

At that time, Van der Sar's biggest competitor was the team's number one goalkeeper Stanley Menzo. Menzo's strength was very good, but in the League Cup final, Menzo made a super-huge mistake, which was a more annoying mistake than Karius' later mistake. Ajax fans could not tolerate such a low-level mistake, so Van Gaal immediately promoted Van der Sar as the main goalkeeper.

So, Van der Sar, who got the opportunity, showed his world-class strength. As a striker, he has very good footwork. He can not only make accurate passes to his teammates, but also rush out of the penalty area to handle the ball calmly. With him on the court, Ajax seems to have an extra central defender. As long as Van der Sar is not troubled by injuries, he will be Van Gaal's first choice for the goalkeeper position.

With the help of Van der Sar, Van Gaal's team not only dominated the Dutch league, but also won the Champions League.

Such a gatekeeper-type goalkeeper can definitely be called a world-class goalkeeper.

However, as a goalkeeper, Van der Sar has a fatal weakness, which is saving penalties.

Van der Sar is also notoriously poor at saving penalties. In the World Cup, as long as he can force the Netherlands team into a penalty shootout, it basically means he can defeat the Netherlands team.

Because of his weakness in saving penalties, Van der Sar was unable to become the best goalkeeper in the world.

However, apart from saving penalties, everything else about Van der Sar is world-class.

Van der Sar is also a player who has experienced ups and downs. After he became famous in Ajax, he was spotted by Juventus, a giant in the Serie A league known as the Little World Cup at the time. But unfortunately, in the two seasons that Van der Sar was the main goalkeeper of Juventus, Juventus not only lost the cup championship, but also lost the league championship.

As the goalkeeper, Van der Sar naturally became the scapegoat for Juventus.

Later, Juventus spent a record-breaking transfer fee to buy young player Buffon, and sold Van der Sar to Fulham of the Premier League for 5 million pounds.

At this time, Van der Sar was already 31 years old. No one was optimistic about Van der Sar. They all thought that Van der Sar would stay in Fulham for two years and then retire.

However, Van der Sar slapped everyone in the face. He played very well in the Premier League and proved that Juventus were blind with his ability as a goalkeeper.

Four years later, in 2005, Van der Sar was signed by Manchester United at the age of 35, and he remained Manchester United's starting goalkeeper until he retired at the age of 40 or 41.

In Ferguson's words, he doesn't feel that Van der Sar is old at all, nor does he feel that Van der Sar's condition has declined. He even feels that Van der Sar can still play at such a high level for another one or two years.

Van der Sar chose to retire at the peak of his life. It must be said that this was a very smart decision.

Van der Sar's most glorious moment at Manchester United was when Manchester United won the Premier League title in 2008 and played against Chelsea in the Champions League final.

At that time, the two sides were tied 1:1 in the regular game, and there was no goal in the overtime, so the two sides entered an exciting penalty shootout.

Following the principle that "big battles with Van der Sar are doomed to fail", Chelsea's players have already begun preparing to celebrate.

However, when taking the fourth penalty kick, Chelsea captain Terry slipped and kicked the ball away when facing Van der Sar! Van der Sar finally won the penalty shootout thanks to Terry's mistake! Manchester United also won the Champions League.

In short, apart from his poor ability in saving penalties, Van der Sar can definitely be considered a world-class goalkeeper in other aspects, and a world-class goalkeeper with a very long peak period. In terms of peak period, he is second only to young player Buffon.

In today's FA Cup final, although Manchester United did not field all of its main lineup, it at least fielded 80% of its main players. This is considered quite important for Manchester United, which still has to fight in the Premier League and the Champions League semi-finals and finals.

beep--

With the referee's whistle, the FA Cup match officially began! (End of this chapter)