Gigio Donnarumma: "My favourite save is always my next"
Ahead of Paris Saint-Germain's last game before the World Cup break, our Italy international goalkeeper told us about his favourite saves of the season so far.
Gigio, you've made a number of saves to help keep Paris Saint-Germain unbeaten in all competitions. Which is your favourite?
The next one! My favourite save is always the next one. I always think about the future, about the next game and doing everything well for things to go well. So the most important save is always the next one. I have always thought like that. I think you mustn't mull things over too much. And then the most important thing is to think about the team and not yourself. I try to help, try to be important for the team, to ease the defenders, to always be alert, focussed. That's my goal. The saves come after that, they are above all a consequence of that. But the important thing is to think overall about the squad, and like that we can go very very far.
We know you like to save penalties, as you did at Brest. What's your secret?
There's a lot of work behind that. We watch and study opposing players. You also need a bit of luck, but the important thing is to prepare yourself for penalties.
And when we see your reaction to making a penalty save, we can imagine it's a strong feeling…
Yes, it's the same as when a forward scores a goal. It's the same feeling for a goalkeeper who saves a penalty. Regarding the Brest game, the most important thing was to preserve the 1-0 lead and get the win. So, when I stopped it...it made it even better.
Check out the whole interview with Gigio to learn more about his penalty-saving secrets!