David Ospina the untold facts and predictions

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

By Walter Broeckx

As has been a public secret for a few days now, and has been confirmed by arsenal.com yesterday, David Ospina will join Arsenal and will fight with Szczesny for the number one spot in goal this season.

So who is he? An attempt to fill in the gaps that nobody really fills in.

Of course we will have to say the obvious things that has been said before. Like that he is from Colombia. And for those who have followed the world cup that is obvious as he played in the world cup for Colombia. Even though it isn’t that obvious any more, with some Brazilians playing for other countries lately. And two brothers one playing for Ghana and the other for Germany. So it’s not that simple any more. Next before we know it we will see people being transferred to other national teams. I’m sure Fifa wouldn’t mind if the right amount can be found in a brown envelop.

But I digress. Colombia, I was talking about. Colombia famous for the good and the bad. The bad is of course the fact that they are famous for delivering drugs to the rest of the world. The good is for delivering Shakira to the rest of the world. If you don’t mind I will take a bit of Shakira instead of the drugs. They speak Spanish in Colombia as if you didn’t know that already. Colombia is the third biggest economic power in South America.

Let’s move on to Medellin. Probably the most known city from Colombia. Mostly known as the capital of drugs. For Arsenal known from now on as the birth place of David Ospina. He played first for the local club Atlètico Nacional. He started in goal at the age of 17 years in the first team. And he won the double title in 2007 with this club.

And then he came to Europe in 2008. He came to Nice and he still played for them at the end of last season. So is not the type of wandering around too much in his career. When he came to Nice he was not that known in Europe. He didn’t get the number one spot immediately even when Lloris had just left the club. He had to battle for it. So he is used to battling his way to the number one spot. Be aware Wojciech.

When we talk about modern goalkeepers he is a midget. Not from the height I look at the world from, but he is rather small for a keeper these days. He is only 1,83 metres tall (six feet in English).  To compare with Szczesny who is 1,96 meters tall (6 feet 5 inches) that is a big difference. But it’s not about the size I have heard, it is about how to use whatever height you have.

I am 10 cm shorter than Ospina and I was a good goalkeeper but I can assure you that on many occasions they looked at my size and laughed at first. But if you have good athleticism and have strong legs that can make you jump faster and higher than a bigger keeper you can make it up. Reminds me of my own ‘glory days’ when at the age of 17 I was a new keeper at my team having to fight an older experienced keeper who was around 30 also new and some 15 cm bigger than me. It took me 45 minutes to overcome the doubters that were big in numbers and I didn’t gave away the number one spot till my career ended in blood, tears and broken limbs.

So size matters but how you use your body is much more important. And apparently Ospina knows how to use his body very well. And from what I have heard it also is a keeper that can play a bit of football himself.

He is very strong as a shot stopper and has excellent reflexes. And he was one of the heroes when Colombia managed to qualify for the world cup. And in that world cup he also was excellent it seems. I haven’t seen that much of the world cup so cannot say much about it.  But given the clips they showed he was excellent most of the time.

He played 199 matches for Nice and I feel we should have given him one more as that would have given him a nice round number but well nobody cares about it that much I think. And he also played 45 matches for the national team of Colombia. He scored no goals in those matches. But that isn’t a real surprise I guess.

We must keep in mind that this transfer as we and get to the Untold side of things.  And here we bring James Rodriguez from Real Madrid to Arsenal. Let me explain. World cup top scorer and sensation James Rodriguez is married with Daniele Ospina who happens to be the sister of our David.  Now we all know that as Real Madrid has to buy the flavour of the month it will mean that in some two seasons time James Rodriguez will be thrown away at the big garbage bin of former flavour of the month at Real Madrid. Mind you the same goes for Barcelona by the way.

So in two years time a new flavour of the month will be bought to replace James Rodriguez and then as most good footballers they will be looking for a decent team that will give them a new chance.  And at this point the Ospina move will come in handy as they are brothers in law so we will have a big advantage when Real Madrid dumps him and he wants out. The only problem might be that the marriage would end in a divorce of course. That could be a possible bummer for this future deal.

But that is the future. The now is that we have replaced Fabianski with an excellent keeper. Not the biggest around but a fine athlete, with good reflexes and who has proven himself on all levels both in Europe and in the world. Welcome David and we hope you have a good career at Arsenal.

The books
The complete Arsenal Anniversary series is to be found on the Arsenal History Society site.

 

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25 Replies to “David Ospina the untold facts and predictions”

  2. I must admit this sounds like a really good signing.

    When it comes to buying a back up keeper one of the problems you can have is that a ‘back up’ is all you get.

    Some of the names I had been hearing, as decent as they are, looked like being just that, back up.

    The inherent problem is that they are 2nd choice and quite happy to be so. Some how that says to me they are not going to press the No 1 quite as much as we would like.

    Far better to have TWO guys who see themselves as FIRST choice.

    Surely that is what pushes both on to better and better performances.

    I think that is what we saw last year. Fabianski was breathing down Szczesnys neck and I think that is what pushed him to his best season so far, and a share of the ‘Golden Glove’.

    The only draw back is of course, for the loser it can be very frustrating, and like Fabianski he may, should he fail to secure being 1st choice, push for a move.

    But you just have to cross that bridge when you come to it.

    I would still much rather have a battle than a comfortable compromise.

  3. Did you know that while at Nice he received 11 yellow & 4 red cards? I saw that in the Metro, so it must be true.

  5. ………. on further investigation I see that it’s spread over years, so not too bad.

  6. Oldgroover, the media will love him for that… yeah lets have another go at Wenger for his red card records they will be dreaming 🙂

  9. See what I told you about from his first interview on arsenal.com:

    You’re Arsenal’s first Colombian player – how proud are you of that?

    Extremely proud, and I’m expecting to do very well so other Colombian players can also come here.

    Don’t be surprised to see James Rodriguez in an Arsenal shirt in the future 😉 🙂

  10. He certainly knows the right things to say. It’s as if they gave him a list of the questions prior to the interview.
    I know, yes I’m an old cynic.

  11. Wait a minute! Ospina’s sis married James? I smell something here. Is Arsene Wenger is up to something? That will even upstage the phantom, vapour, undercover, invisible, decoy or whatever Ozil transfer? Man, just when I thought I got him through…

  19. About Ospina’s height – he is just two centimeters shorter than Iker Casillas, arguably the best goalkeeper in the world in the lastfew decades. So, no need for big noise about it.

    His saves against Greece made him first goalkeeper to catch my attention at WC before Navas and Neuer stole the show. It was a comfortable victory for Colombia at the end but only because Ospina had made at least one brilliant save.

    He prevented Uruguay from making a contest out of safe Colombian victory in the First Knockout Stage with a well-timed dash and a save that kept two-goal-lead for Colombia.

    P.S. Walter, it’s not just Shakira that is from Colombia. Sofia Vergara is also Ospina’s compatriot.

  21. Injuries hampered us last year, but they happened because training and load management of players was terrible.Defeats happened last year because we only had one game plan last year.Spankings happened regularly because we didn’t ever learn from our mistakes. There was no scenario planning. There was no different approach. We just kept doing the same thing over and over again.Ultimately, you can bury your head in the sand and pretend that the only thing holding us back over the past 8 years was money. Ivan Gazidis is doing an excellent PR job rewriting history… however, the simple fact is it’s been Wenger and his archaic approach to the game that’s been the problem when kicking lots of great teams onto the next level.

  22. From his form and ability, it’s a bargain. He is clearly first class material

  23. Pelail your argument would be interesting if you provided a single bit of evidence to back it up rather than make assertion after assertion.

  24. Pelail- that sounds dubiously like someone who doesnt watch matches and gets their views from so called pundits.

    If you remember the match against Dortmund in both the first and second leg, we set up completely differently- One to control and dictate the match and one to sit back absorb and hit them on the counter. Had it not been for a cruel bit of luck we would have taken 4 points instead of 3. Our set up was different along with how we played with and without the ball.

    The same can be said against Napoli in the first leg where we pressed high up the pitch and used the nous of Ozil and Ramsey to play some of the best football of the year for us, again most of the same players/ types of players but the way we played and how we lined up both with and without the ball was different.

    Playing Sanogo instead of Giroud against Bayern Munich in the first leg is another example how Wenger went for pace and unpredictability as opposed to playing Giroud, it was going according to plan before Chezzers got sent off. The FA Cup against Wigan and Hull both had us revert to a 4-4-2 late in the game.

    Also if im not mistaken Walcott played upfront as a lone striker against Spuds before he got injured- Again changing the way we play and the layout of our team. How can you say that Arsene wasn’t tactically astute? Had we not had crippling injuries he may have continued changing things up. Surely if you watch most of the games you would have identified this? Against Liverpool?Everton/Chelsea/ Man City- there is a lesson to be learned in regards to damage limitation, one that im sure will be addressed this season.

    It’s crazy how many fans don’t recognize his versatility as a manager.

  25. Evidence? Are you serious? The spankings against the top teams…. The managers inability to buy a backup striker in January. How many more?

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