134: Jose Santiago Canizares, Spain, Panini England European Football Championship ’96

Today Mat Jolin-Beech takes a look at a multi-talented Spanish shot stopper who was cruelly robbed of greater international recognition by injury. Dave Beasant incident aside you might also be concerned about our author’s physical state after reading today’s post but thankfully the only real victim in his accident was his jeans which can now qualify him for the hot youth trends he was always destined to model. Over to Mat with the rest.

Before I get into the meat of this post, the inspiration came to me at about 6:45am when cycling on my way to the train station. Given it was December, bloody freezing out, and the roads were damp, what was about to happen should have been obvious. So obvious in fact that I, as the conscientious, hi vis and helmet wearing cyclist, knew this could happen. Coming to a junction, I slowed down more than normal before commencing my right turn. Only I didn’t. The front wheel slid from underneath me, leaving me floundering on the floor in the middle of the road underneath my folding Land Rover bicycle.

After doing the essential checks (no broken bones, bike in one piece, phones and wallet still intact) I picked up the bike and my first through was “Oh God, I’m going to miss my train!” I carried on (slightly more sheepishly) to the station and just made my train. Then inspiration struck – injuries and missing things. And to me, that can only mean one man.

Injuries can be cruel for footballers. They can define a career for some – Darren Anderton for one. They can blunt one’s impact – see Michael Owen and his hamstrings. Or they can become the source of some weird collective nationwide voodoo – see David Beckham and his metatarsal in 2002. And then there are the freak injuries (just like falling off a bike and (nearly) missing your train to work).

The freakiest and unluckiest injuries of them all must got to one Santiago Canizares. The eccentric Spaniard was just about to get his opportunity in the limelight for his national team (that was just starting to come good after years of underachieving). Having not quite broken into the first team in the 90s and for Euro 2000, he had made the number one shirt his own. He was going to be between the sticks at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea.

Or he was until fate intervened – amusingly because of his butter fingers. He dropped a bottle of aftershave, severing a tendon in his foot less than a week before the squad departed for the Far East. His opportunity was lost, and some young whippersnapper 18-year old took his place. One Iker Casillas. What did he achieve with his career eh? I could end it there, or go on to talk about Canizares’ heroics over two decades and 500 club games; or about the fact he’s fathered seven kids one of whom is in the Real Madrid set up pushing for a squad place. But what shocked me most of all – and something I genuinely had no clue about, was Canizares’ post football career.

Usually for footballers, this is coaching, management, punditry, owning a pub, property development, or advertising bookies but for Canizares, he went back to one of his young loves. Rallying. Yes, driving absurdly quickly, in powerful lightweight cars, along narrow roads and perilously close to trees, cliffs, and spectators. And it turns out he’s not bad at it either. His first rally came in 2010 two years after hanging up his gloves. Within a year he was representing the Suzuki Ibérica Motor Sport team. By 2017, he had earned his first rallying victory by winning the Rally de la Cerámica with a Porsche 997 before going on to be crowned Valencian Community champion.

What all of this proves is that goalkeepers really are mad and that injuries aren’t always the end. And that falling off your bike on the ice doesn’t mean you have to miss your train to work. Or something.