Not Only Strikers, Italy is also Experiencing a Shortage of Great Goalkeepers

Since ancient times, for decades prior, the Italian League has been renowned for producing great goalkeepers. They would become the backbone of the Italian national team at the international level.

Take, for example, Dino Zoff and Gianluigi Buffon, and more recently Gianluigi Donnarumma, who are a few world-class goalkeepers born from the nurturing of Italian football. These three goalkeepers have risen to prominence due to Italy's strong confidence in local products to fill the position of the number one player on the green field.

After Buffon retired, Donnarumma continued the legacy as the main goalkeeper and captain of 'Gli Azzurri'. The career of the AC Milan Academy graduate is quite unusual for an Italian goalkeeper. He did indeed represent Milan, but the peak of his career was enjoyed at two wealthy foreign clubs, Paris Saint-Germain in France and Manchester City in England.

While Donnarumma has comfortably established himself as the best goalkeeper in the world abroad, Serie A is experiencing a stagnation in the regeneration of world-class goalkeepers. This is evident in the 2025-2026 edition of Serie A.

Entering the new year 2026 and approaching the mid-season in the 19th week, there are no Italian goalkeepers who have performed brilliantly and elevated their team's performance. Let alone discussing the ability to become club stars, Italian goalkeepers have failed to display captivating individual performances up to the middle of this season.

As an initial overview, the statistical records of goalkeepers with a collection of clean sheets are dominated by foreign goalkeepers. Among the five best goalkeepers, who have conceded the least in the Italian League matches, four of them are from outside Italy.

Ivan Provedel, the goalkeeper for Lazio, is the only native Italian player to make the list. Provedel has already played nine matches without conceding a goal and has only suffered 14 goals scored against him by opposing players. His performance has resulted in a goal expectation against Lazio of 6.7 goals. This is the highest goal prevention figure for a goalkeeper in the 2025-2026 edition of the Italian League.

The other four goalkeepers on the list are foreign players. They are Jean Butez, the goalkeeper from Como, who is from France and has played eight matches without conceding a goal. Then, there are Mike Svilar (AS Roma/Serbia), Mike Maignan (AC Milan/France), and Yann Sommer (Inter Milan/Switzerland), all of whom have recorded seven matches without conceding a goal.

Continuing into the statistics of save rates, once again only Provedel, the goalkeeper who can play for the Italian national team, made it into the top five. Svilar recorded the highest save rate from the shots faced. He was able to fend off 83 percent of the opponent's shots.

Provedel followed in second place with 82 percent. Emil Audero then shot up to third with an 81 percent save rate. Despite being a homegrown Italian player, Audero is already a member of the Indonesian national team.

The list is completed by Butez with 81 percent, then Arijanet Muric, Sassuolo's Kosovar goalkeeper, with a 76 percent save rate.

Continuing to the level of saves per 90 minutes. Audero leads the list with 4.3 saves per game. Elia Caprile, the young Italian goalkeeper representing Cagliari, is also on the list with 3.8 saves per game.

Provedel and Muric both recorded 3.6 saves per match in 18 appearances. Meanwhile, Adrian Semper, the Croatian goalkeeper from Pisa, consistently made 3.4 saves per game.

When it comes to preventing goals, Provedel remains the best. He's followed by Svilar (6.2 expected goals against/xGA), Caprile (5.9 xGA), Maignan (4.5 xGA), and Muric (3.3 xGA).

In total, 27 goalkeepers have played for the 20 best teams in Italy up to week 18. Italian goalkeepers can be considered inferior in terms of quantity. This is because only 11 Italian goalkeepers have already played.

The figure is equivalent to 41 percent of the total number of goalkeepers who have already appeared. This number is very small, especially when compared to the statistical records that serve as a reference for goalkeeper performance week by week.

Provedel has consistently topped the list of Italian goalkeepers with the most impressive statistics. However, he hasn't yet reached the level of quality worthy of wearing the Azzurri uniform, let alone displacing Donnarumma as Italy's starting goalkeeper for the 2026 World Cup qualifying playoffs next March.

Deputy Donnarumma is also a goalkeeper who has a career in England, namely Guglielmo Vicario, a mainstay of Tottenham Hotspur. In addition to these two goalkeepers, the Italian national team coach Gennaro Gattuso prefers to call Marco Carnesecchi (Atalanta), Alex Meret (Napoli), or Caprile.

In terms of age, the three backup goalkeepers of the Italian national team are still younger than Provedel, who will turn 32 in March 2026. Carnesecchi and Caprile are 25 and 24 years old, respectively, while Meret is 28 years old. However, none of them have yet shown promising performances in Serie A. Meret is also still sidelined due to injury.

Actually, Italy still has Michele Di Gregorio who strengthens Juventus. In reality, Di Gregorio has yet to meet the high expectations that Juve is always supported by the best Italian goalkeeper in every generation.

In fact, during the 1990s, the coach of the Italian national team did not have to worry about choosing a goalkeeper. Even, the goalkeepers took turns being the primary choice to compete in international tournaments, such as the World Cup and the European Championship. They were Angelo Peruzzi, Gianluca Pagliuca, Francesco Toldo, and Walter Zenga.

Now, Italian teams are even importing goalkeepers from countries that have less of a tradition for fantastic goalkeepers. For instance, Zion Suzuki, a Japanese goalkeeper from Parma; Madura Okoye, a Nigerian-born goalkeeper from Udinese; and Muric, who holds a Kosovo passport.