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The two goalkeepers have been in inspirational form for their countries but who should get the award?
Morocco's Yassine "Bono" Bounou and Croatia's Dominik Livakovic have been stand-out stars for their countries at the Qatar 2022 World Cup, so the battle for the award for the best goalkeeper at the World Cup could go down to the wire.
Bono and Livakovic are the front runners for the award after exceptional performances but who deserves it most, and how does one even go about deciding such things?
Clean sheets and goals conceded
The most referenced metric when it comes to goalkeeping is clean sheets, which have been used to judge excellence in goalkeeping for decades.
In this regard, no goalkeeper has been better than Morocco’s Bono, who has kept clean sheets in three of the four games he has played and is tied with Jordan Pickford for the most clean sheets at the 2022 World Cup so far.
The only goal he has conceded has been an unfortunate own goal in Morocco's 2-1 win over Canada in its final group game.
No other goalkeeper left in the tournament has conceded fewer, with Argentina’s Emiliano Martinez letting in five goals, France’s Hugo Lloris conceding four times, and Croatia’s Livakovic conceding three.
Even beyond the World Cup, Morocco have not conceded a goal from an opponent in eight games under coach Walid Regragui, and their defensive quality has already earned them high praise from all quarters.
But this raises an interesting point. Even though Bono has been in goal for Morocco for most games, he has not been in goal for all of them. Yet Morocco have still managed to look like a solid defensive unit.
So how much of Morocco’s resilience is down to Bono, and how much of it is down to the excellent defensive organisation of the team?
Individual metrics
Fortunately, we can look at individual goalkeeper metrics to see who has been helped by a strong defensive unit and who has repeatedly stood up to make a difference for their team.
The praise Morocco has received for limiting their opponents' opportunities is well deserved; Bono has only had to make five saves throughout the competition, and the Moroccan team has only allowed eight shots on goal throughout the 2022 World Cup.
This means that Morocco have conceded fewer shots on goal per 90 minutes than 29 of the 32 teams in Qatar.
An incredible feat by any standard. The only team left in the competition that has conceded fewer shots than Morocco have been Argentina, who have conceded the fewest shots per 90mins, even though they have conceded only six shots in the tournament.
In contrast to Morocco, Argentina conceded five goals (including an own goal), and Martinez has only made two saves in the entire tournament.
France have failed to keep a clean sheet in the World Cup so far, despite Lloris making eight saves from the 12 shots that France have allowed on target in the competition.
And now Livakovic…
The Croatian goalkeeper has made 19 saves in this tournament. Second only to Poland’s Wojciech Szczęsny, who has made 21. Incredibly, Livakovic has saved 86.4% of shots that he has faced. He is the second-most efficient shot stopper in the World Cup, trailing only Tunisia's Aimen Dahmen, who also made ten fewer saves.
It hasn’t been just the quantity of Livakovic’s saves that have set him apart at the World Cup, but also the quality of the stops.
The 27-year-old Dinamo Zagreb goalkeeper has saved 3.1 goals more than expected so far, and the difference between his goals conceded (GC) and post-shot expected goals conceded (PSxG) is the best positive differential at the World Cup.
In comparison, Bono’s differential is +1.6, Lloris’ is +0.3, and Martinez’ is -1.8, meaning that he has conceded more goals than would have been expected from the average goalkeeper given the quality of chances he has conceded.
Martinez has the third-worst differential in the World Cup, but he might not have had the chance to perform some heroics in the penalty shootout, which is his speciality if he had been a better shot-stopper during normal time.
Bonus Round: Penalties
Martinez showed his dexterity with penalties in the quarterfinal shootout against the Netherlands, saving two spot kicks to become the fourth Argentine goalkeeper to lead his side to a shootout victory.
But he has not been the only one in contention for the Golden Glove award who has come up big in a penalty shootout at the 2022 World Cup.
France’s Lloris is the only one of the remaining four goalkeepers to not participate in a penalty shootout so far, and did not do so either when France won the World Cup in 2018.
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Bono stopped two penalty kicks when Morocco shocked Spain in the quarterfinals, ensuring that Morocco's record of not allowing an opponent to score also extended to the penalty shootout.
Livakovic also has some penalty heroics of his own, and his string of saves has even seen him equal World Cup records.
He has faced eight penalties in shootouts, and five of those taken against him have been missed (the most in World Cup history for one goalkeeper).
He has saved four of those penalties (also the most in World Cup history for one goalkeeper) and has helped his country win two penalty shootouts (you guessed it, the most in World Cup history), doing so in one tournament as well, which is yet again a World Cup record.
His three stops in the shootout against Japan were also a record for the most stops in a single penalty shootout. So it seems like even in the ultimate duel between a goalkeeper and his adversary, Livakovic has been so good, he has been exceptional.
In the end, the choice for the Golden Glove should be easy, more so if Croatia reach a second World Cup final in succession.
Livakovic has proven himself outstanding in both normal time and penalty shootouts and should win the World Cup’s Golden Glove if there is any justice in the world.
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