Put Noguiera in Goal, Leave the Rest to Him

No matter what the sport, concepts change.

Baseball, for example, began with the notion that two or three workhorse pitchers could get the job done, hence Jack Chesbro winning 41 games and pitching 454 2/3 innings for the New York Highlanders in 1904.

Today, a generation after Denny McLain’s 31-victory season for Detroit in 1968, the five-man rotation has rendered the four-man rotation obsolete and made 20-game winners rarities.

This same theory had come into play in the sport of indoor soccer, which had taken to the idea that its pivotal player, the guy under the most intense physical and psychological pressure, should not be constantly abused.

Consequently, goalkeepers would no longer be iron men.

The Sockers, as might be expected, were in the forefront of the move to a two-man goalkeeping “rotation.”

Indoor soccer’s last goalkeeper to win 30 games was the Sockers’ Alan Mayer in 1983 . . . and he won exactly 30. It appeared that would be this sport’s version of a record which would last forever.

The Sockers went to alternating goalkeepers the next year, starting with the Mayer-Jim Gorsek tag team and working their way through Gorsek-Zoltan Toth to Toth-Victor Nogueira. In the seven seasons following Mayer’s 30-win season, the Sockers had only two 20-game winners . . . Gorsek and Toth, both in 1987-88.

Individual wins had taken a back seat to team success as the Sockers rolled onward to eight championships in nine years.

Suddenly, through no fault of its own, the concept fell apart. The Major Soccer League’s salary cap was too tight for the Sockers to pay both Nogueira and Toth what they were worth. Toth moved on to the St. Louis Storm.

Victor Manuel Cabral DeBarros Nogueira was left on his own.

Socker fans were gnashing their teeth. It was not that they lacked confidence in Nogueira, but rather that they had grown accustomed to the concept that goalkeepers should be alternated to be effective.

The season began with considerable fuss about how vulnerable the Sockers had become and what a dismal year this might be.

However, all Victor Nogueira did was set an indoor soccer record with 31 wins and all the Sockers did was put together the best record in the MSL.

Late Thursday night, after the Sockers had beaten St. Louis (and Toth), 9-6, in the Game 1 of the Western Division championship series, Nogueira sat in front of his locker slowly pulling all of the padding from his body.

Game 2 would be tonight in San Diego and Game 3 would be Sunday night in St. Louis, meaning this man would be in goal for three critical games in less than 70 hours.

The idea did not seem to faze Nogueira. He never seems either excited or nervous. He’s not quite as emotional as a statue.

“He’s a comfortable player,” said teammate Brian Quinn. “He doesn’t get flustered. His mindset is perfect for a goalkeeper.”

Indeed, Nogueira does his job with such efficiency it’s almost possible to forget that he is there. He is not acrobatic, as most goalkeepers are, and he is not animated, as many goalkeepers are. He makes “degree of difficulty” seem like zero.

You watch Nogueira in goal and you wonder if he has to shower after the game.

This calm efficiency likely makes him the perfect goalkeeper to tend to duties by himself. If he positions himself properly, which experience has taught him to do, he doesn’t have to be acrobatic.

“It’s my temperament,” he said. “I’m calm. I’m very aggressive toward my defenders to make them perform, but I’m very calm in respect to being a goalkeeper.”

And he is very ho-hum when it comes to the pressures of playing every game, as he will likely do through the playoffs.

“It hasn’t really affected me,” he said. “We’ve been playing two games a week the whole year.”

But not three games in four days . . .

“I haven’t had to do that for a long time,” he said, “but I’m pretty well rested.”

A key here isn’t how he is used in games but rather how he is, or isn’t, used in practice. Ron Newman, the coach, does not waste him.

“He doesn’t pressure me to perform during the week,” he said. “I don’t ever play goalkeeper in practice. I play defense in practice and I love it . . . almost as much as playing golf.”

He laughed. He may even love it more than playing golf.

“That’s Newman’s strength with players,” he said. “He plays to their personalities.”

Part of Victor Nogueira’s personality is that he loves to handle the ball. He does it in practice and he does it in games, frequently bringing it upfield in cautious yet aggressive offensive forays.

You can see why this guy would not cringe at having one position all to himself. One position is barely enough to satisfy him.