Flamengo missed the chance to add a golden finish to its fantastic year of 2025 by losing the Intercontinental Cup, which according to FIFA has World Cup status, to Paris Saint-Germain in a penalty shootout.
The red-and-black executioner at the Ahmed bin Ali stadium, in Al Rayyan (Qatar), has a name, surname, age, height, nationality and position.
Matvei Safonov, 26 years old and 1.92 m, was born in Krasnodar, Russia. He has been PSG’s goalkeeper since the middle of last year.
Safonov, who also plays for his country’s national team, suspended from competitions by FIFA (football’s highest governing body) and Uefa (which controls football in Europe) due to the Ukrainian War, took no less than four of the five Flamengo penalty kicks in the dispute to define the champion.
They ended up in the hands of the Russian, in sequence, the Spaniard Saúl, Pedro, Léo Pereira and Luiz Araújo. The first three hit miserably poorly, making it easy for Safonov.
Avoiding the conversion of four penalties in an important decision is extremely rare.
Colombian goalkeeper René Higuita succeeded in the 1989 Libertadores final, between Atlético Nacional, from Colombia, and Olimpia, from Paraguay, at the El Campín stadium, in Bogotá.
Iconic, Higuita is something of a legend of the position. He acted as a libero goalkeeper, being the precursor of this positioning, and in a somewhat crazy way, as he advanced and dribbled past his rivals – very risky, but he was more successful than wrong.
He also performed a very risky, and very plastic, “scorpion defense” in a friendly between England and Colombia at Wembley, in 1995, jumping forward, resting his hands on the ground and using his feet together to hit the ball, pushing it away, very close to the goal line and without any need.
He still took free kicks and penalties, proving himself to be a goalkeeper, like Rogério Ceni and Paraguayan Chilavert.
The difference for Safonov is that, in that decisive dispute, Higuita did not save all four penalties in a row.
He took the first, conceded four goals in a row, converted his own (if he missed, Olimpia would be champions) and, in alternating shots, saved three consecutive shots.
Another goalkeeper who in a major final decided via maximum penalties had resounding success was the Romanian Helmut Duckadam (1959-2024), hero of Steaua Bucharest against Barcelona in 1986, in the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (currently the Champions League).
At the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán stadium, in Seville, four times a Barcelona player tried to score a goal from the limelight, four times the mustachioed Duckadam prevented it, being the hero of the Romanian team, in the first of the only two times that a representative from Eastern Europe lifted the cup.
This time, the glory went to the Russian, who became an instant idol for his PSG colleagues, who threw him into the air, celebrating, in the Qatari stadium, and for the fans of the main Parisian club.
After all, if taking one penalty in a dispute may not be enough (flaminguista Rossi stopped at one), taking two may be good (it is used in most decisions) and taking three may be too much (in a complimentary sense), taking four is only for predestined sporadics.
Safonov, to the bitterness of Flamengo fans, is the predestined one this time.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
