Ironies of nature, a low and flat country like Denmark, with an average altitude of 30 meters above the sea, is capable of producing giants for the handball goal like Niklas Landin (Kiel), Jannick Green (PSG), Simon Gade ( Aalborg), Kevin Møller (Flensburg) or the enormous –literal and metaphorical– Emil Nielsen (26), the goalkeeper who joined Barça this season, and who with Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas has turned the Blaugrana goal into “the best in the worldâ€.
This is assured by someone who knows a while about goalkeepers like David Barrufet (52), who, being a Blaugrana manager, was the architect, together with Xavi Pascual, of convincing and signing Nielsen at the end of 2020, when he played for Nantes.
“Without a doubt, right now it is the best goalkeeper in the world, with Gonzalo, who is one of the three best, and Nielsen, who could end up being one,” says Barru, who was captivated by that blond kid who overflowed the goal with his impressive volume. (195 cm and 117 kg).
“What caught our attention the most when we saw the 2019 Junior World Cup live on video and was that he stopped a lot, that he made it easy, his sobriety and that he could evolve a lot.”
With that good-natured silhouette of the Marshmallow Man (that giant doll dressed as a sailor at the end of the Ghostbusters movie), what stands out most about Nielsen is his ability to stop under sticks with an elasticity reminiscent of the great Arpad Sterbik, capable of lifting his foot to the crosshead “He seems to be chubby, but he has incredible elasticity and great speed of movement,” says his coach, Carlos Ortega, delighted with the possibility of having two top goalkeepers. “The goal has improved a lot. Now one replaces the other when he’s not fine; Emil has helped us lift games like the one in Celje,” recalls the coach from Malaga.
Among his characteristics, “his reflexes, elasticity, his reaction speed and ability to read a pitch” stand out, analyzes Barrufet for this newspaper. Although Nielsen considers that his main virtue is “calm; I like to play the hot minutes, the situations under pressure”, he explained to La Vanguardia, already relaxed in the Santander concentration hotel, after having contributed 5 saves in 14 shots (35%) in half against Torrelavega, in the quarterfinal match of the Copa del Rey (43-29).
“Gonzalo and I are very different, but we complement each other very well,” says Nielsen, who started out under the sticks at the age of 11 in his town, Aarhus, “because nobody wanted to be a goalkeeper, so they put the new one on the team, I was quite well and I continued†–he explains–. His childhood idol was Kasper Hvidt, “who was the Barça goalkeeper, I saw him on TV.” Years later he would occupy his place, for which Barru and Pasqui did not have to convince him. Of course, he had to wait two years to finish his contract in Nantes.
“It was difficult that last year before coming. I was very proud, it was something very big for me, it was an honor to go to Barça, where everything is more spectacular than I imaginedâ€, explains Nielsen, delighted with the Barcelona climate and living in the stately neighborhood of Sant Gervasi with his girlfriend Sara. , and eager to lift his first Champions League. “It’s my big goal.”
Although first there is the Copa del Rey. This Saturday (6:00 p.m., Teledeporte), the semifinal against Ademar León, who beat Guadalajara (23-35).
