Emil Audero shines as Cremonese continue their strong start

VERONA, TUESDAY – Emil Audero, the goalkeeper of the Indonesian national football team, is increasingly demonstrating his maturity as a reliable shot-stopper with Cremonese in the 2025-2026 Italian League. Against Hellas Verona, Emil delivered the most saves of his professional career in Italy's top-tier competition.

The match held at the Marcantonio Bentegodi Stadium on Tuesday (16/9/2025) early morning WIB ended in a goalless draw, 0-0. Emil was the most important figure who helped Cremonese, the promoted team, to continue their unbeaten streak at the beginning of this season.

The goalkeeper, born in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, was like a spider with many arms to anticipate the attacks from the home team. A total of nine shots from Verona players were thwarted by Emil. Six of those shots were made inside the Cremonese penalty area.

Of the nine saves, six were made by diving. The player, who stands 1.9 meters tall, made one save with a catch, and then two other clearances using his feet.

Emil's series of saves prevented Verona from conceding 1.26 expected goals (xG). Unsurprisingly, he was the best-performing goalkeeper in Week 3 of the Italian League. Statistics sites Fotmob and Sofascore both gave him an 8.7 rating.

The number of saves set a new single-match record for Emil, who has three caps or appearances for the Indonesian national team. Emil's previous record for most saves came during his debut season with Sampdoria in the 2018-2019 season.

Specifically, Emil made eight saves when Sampdoria faced Fiorentina on September 20, 2018. Unfortunately, the match was somewhat marred as Emil conceded one goal. As a result, the goalless match against Verona was far more memorable for the 28-year-old goalkeeper.

Moreover, Emil had to go through 532 days to record a clean sheet or not conceding in the Italian Serie A League. Emil's last chance to keep a clean sheet was created when he helped Inter Milan beat Empoli 2-0 on April 2, 2024.

I find it difficult to express myself. We were unable to score from 18 goal-scoring opportunities and two shots from outside the penalty area.

In total, Emil has played four matches in the 2025-2026 season without conceding during regular time. The two previous matches were recorded while representing the "Garuda" team in two exhibition matches against Taiwan and Lebanon last week. The other match was in the Italian Cup against Palermo.

"Emil made some brilliant saves. We chose him because we understand his extraordinary qualities," Cremonese coach Davide Nicola told DAZN after the match.

Emil's performance has helped Cremonese reach the top three with a total of seven points. They are one of the four remaining teams that have yet to suffer a defeat, alongside Napoli, Juventus, and Udinese.

After playing three matches with Cremonese, Emil has made a total of 17 saves from 20 shots faced. Of those shots, 14 were taken from inside the penalty area, while the remaining six were taken by opponents from outside the 16-meter box.

Only two shots from open play situations that he could not fend off. One more goal found its way into his net through a penalty executed by the striker and captain of Sassuolo, Domenico Berardi.

In this season of the Italian League, Emil has recorded the highest save percentage of his career, which is 85 percent. On average, he makes 5.6 saves per match.

The best previous save percentage was achieved while defending for Inter in the 2023-2024 season. He played four matches with a save rate of 73 percent.

However, if we only consider his performance as the main goalkeeper at a club, then Emil's best performance was during the 2020-2021 season with Sampdoria. He played 37 matches—missing only one game—with a save rate of 69 percent. He made 122 saves, averaging 3.3 saves per match.

The performance at the beginning of this season indicates that the goalkeeper, a graduate of the Juventus Academy, can recover from last season's poor display. While playing for Como, Emil could only achieve a 49 percent save rate.

This has resulted in him only being trusted to play in eight matches with Como under the management of Cesc Fabregas. In the second half of last season, Emil was loaned to the Serie B team, Palermo. Now, at Cremonese, Emil's status is still a loan from Como, which is owned by the Hartono family, the owners of the Djarum Group from Indonesia.

Verona coach Paolo Zanetti also commented on Emil's impressive performance. Referring to the opportunities and shots generated by his team, Zanetti considers Emil's performance to be more than just a coincidence.

"I'm at a loss for words. We couldn't score from 18 goal-scoring situations and two shots from outside the box," Zanetti was quoted as saying by La Gazzetta dello Sport.