David Ospina has a bit of an image problem. He has won almost 50 international caps with Colombia but some people remain unconvinced by the Arsenal goalkeeper and question his suitability for the cut-and-thrust of English football. According to the Mirror, the reason for this lack of conviction is because Ospina is “a few inches shorter than a top keeper should be”.



It is a view shared by Goal.com, who highlighted the keeper’s apparent lack of height as an “obvious point of concern” when he joined the club last summer. Bizarrely they went on to argue that this “potential flaw in his make-up” was more likely to be exposed in the Premier League than in France, as if to suggest that goals in England were somehow bigger than on the continent. Neither writer mentioned what the requisite measurement should be for a top goalkeeper but perhaps they were thinking about Joe Hart and Fraser Forster rather than Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence who, like Ospina, stand a respectable six feet tall.

Compared to his English contemporaries, the Colombian is clearly a tad on the small side, but that does not necessarily make him a bad goalkeeper. Yet the Express showed surprise that he had managed to keep three clean sheets in his first six league appearances despite his lack of stature. One wonders what they would have made of Peter Bonetti, who at 5ft 10in would probably be considered too small to play outfield, let alone in goal, but was once considered among the best keepers in the world during a successful period for English football.

Jorge Campos playing for Mexico at the 1994 World Cup. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Allsport

In past decades, exceptionally tall goalkeepers in England’s top flight were the exception rather than the norm. Their heights were often a lazy talking point for commentators and journalists alike, with players such as Joe Corrigan and Dave Beasant, who were both over 6ft 4in, being saddled with unimaginative nicknames such as “Big Joe” or “Lurch”. Yet while some view Ospina’s lack of inches as a negative, their superior height advantage was not necessarily seen as a positive, and neither managed to displace Shilton as England No1.

The only time Shilton’s lack of height was brought into question was in the aftermath of the 1990 World Cup semi-final shootout, when he went the right way on each kick but failed to stop any of West Germany’s penalties. Some said that Beasant should have been brought on by Bobby Robson to face the spot-kicks, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t even listed among the substitutes. But the Derby County goalkeeper didn’t have a particularly good record at saving penalties anyway and managed only one in his entire international career, against Andreas Brehme in 1985.

Timing rather than height was probably more to blame, especially when you consider the record for the most penalty saves in a season is still held by the relatively diminutive Paul Cooper of Ipswich Town, who stopped eight out of 10 penalties during the 1979-80 season, despite being only 5ft 11in.

Forster has yet to face a penalty while on international duty but at 6ft 7in he holds the record for being the tallest goalkeeper to play for England. By contrast, the smallest was Teddy Davison, who was a foot shorter but managed to keep a clean sheet on his one appearance back in 1922, something Forster has yet to achieve over 90 minutes.

Renowned for his “lightning reflexes and top-class anticipation”, Davison played over 400 games for Sheffield Wednesday and was the pre-war equivalent of Mexico’s Jorge Campos, without the forays up front. Mexico certainly had no qualms about fielding Campos (who was a few inches smaller than his official statistics suggested, at 5ft 6in rather than 5ft 9in) in two consecutive World Cup campaigns and there appears to be less concern over a goalkeeper’s height overseas.

Spain enjoyed a period of unprecedented dominance with a first-choice pairing of Iker Casillas and Víctor Valdés, both of whom are six foot despite Casillas’s claims to be taller. Last year Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and Cameroon all selected keepers that were the same height as Bonetti, while Ospina reached the quarter-finals with Colombia. But the Mirror is still adamant that Ospina’s “lack of height leaves him susceptible to certain bits of genius” and posted footage of him being chipped by Dimitar Berbatov to support their claim. Perhaps someone should point out that being 6ft 4in didn’t stop David Seaman from being chipped from 40 yards, and remind them that size isn’t everything.

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