Soccer is the only sport that can end with both sides not getting points – referred to as goals. This makes it difficult for many Americans to comprehend.
Both teams should also be able to get points – or goals – on the board, as far as it’s a ball sport.
While this is not a misguided sentiment, the way soccer works means that some teams will never be able to score goals in every game.
The reason for this is defense, on which soccer prides itself. The team with great defense gets a clean sheet for its efforts.
What Do Clean Sheets in Soccer Mean?
In a 90-minute soccer game, teams have two main objectives: to score and prevent the other team from scoring.
Scoring is great, but preventing the other team from scoring is where it’s at. One of the best coaches in the beautiful game’s history, Sir Alex Ferguson, once said, “Attack wins you games; defense wins you titles.”
Ferguson’s teams won many games and titles (trophies, championships) by stopping other teams from scoring against them—in essence, by keeping clean sheets in different matches.
To define the term, a clean sheet in soccer simply means a situation where a team conceded no goals in a football game. This is the responsibility of a team’s defenders and goalkeepers.
Why is It Called a Clean Sheet?
Like every other aspect of life, technology became part and parcel of soccer as time passed.
At some point, soccer match statistics were kept on sheets of paper. Goals, saves, assists, and fouls were captured on different pieces of paper. Where nothing was recorded, the sheet would be clean.
At the end of each game, the announcer read the statistics to the fans in the stadium before the officials took the sheets for documentation.
The term clean sheet emerged from this era in football, which is said to be around the 1930s when the sport was still being standardized.
With time, teams who shut out their opponents and had no goals recorded against them were said to have clean sheets.
Which Goalkeeper has the Most Clean Sheets?
Clean sheets in soccer are the responsibility of the entire team, but the defense and the goalkeepers play a bigger role in securing them.
The goalkeepers, especially, because they are the bastion of a team’s defense. This is why the goalkeepers are praised for clean sheets.
Below are the goalkeepers with the most clean sheets in the sport.
Gianluigi Buffon – 501 Clean Sheets
Gianluigi Buffon was a goalkeeper who played for the Italy national soccer team and several clubs, including Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain.
Buffon is considered one of the best goalkeepers ever, with many even arguing that he is the best.
The Italian had a long career at the top of the game, winning many titles across the different teams he played for and keeping out many of the world’s best attackers.
His 501 clean sheets account for a whopping 44 percent of the games he played in his three-decade career.
Edwin Van Der Sar – 440 Clean Sheets
Edwin van der Sar was a goalkeeper from the Netherlands who kept the goal for his country’s national team in major tournaments. He also kept his goal for some of Europe’s biggest clubs, such as Manchester United and AFC Ajax Amsterdam.
The giant goalkeeper was quite an anomaly in his time. Tall players are normally used in goals, but one weakness of many of them was their ability to react to low shots. Van der Sar rarely showed this weakness, even late into his 30s.
He kept 440 clean sheets in his active career, which is 46 percent of all the soccer games he played.
Iker Casillas – 440 Clean Sheets
Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas is a special breed.
Compared to the top 20 goalkeepers on this list, the former Spain national soccer team goalkeeper, who also played for Real Madrid and FC Porto, is pretty short.
Many expected him to be phased out of the game after his first few weeks because of his height, but he put in strong performances after strong performances, which also changed the perception toward shorter goalkeepers.
Iker Casillas kept the same amount of clean sheets as Edwin van der Sar, which is 42 percent of all the games he played in his career.
Final Thoughts
Unlike other statistics and metrics in soccer, clean sheets are mainly for bragging rights. One reason they are not taken seriously is that opponents could be poor in attack.
Clean sheets are great for a team’s title-winning chances too, which is why many teams work to have them every match in a regular soccer season.
However, goalkeepers, who perform a thankless job on the team, are rewarded for this with the Golden Glove. The competitive nature of footballers leads goalkeepers to work with their defense so that they can stand a chance to win that award.
