4 Goalkeepers Who Vanished After a Big-Game Howler

#3 Massimo Taibi, 1999

Massimo Taibi

Ask the average football lover about his or her opinion on Massimo Taibi and a good chance is that they’ll only have insults to toss. Signed in by Sir Alex Ferguson for nearly $9 million, a promising player that the Scot had great hopes from which dampened in a short span of time. His first appearance was pitted against the supreme Liverpool at Anfield where Taibi did actually put up a great display of sportsmanlike skill.

His career at Old Trafford saw its end soon as it began. The watershed moment in his career came for the worse was at the Theatre of Dreams while playing for Manchester United against Southampton where the ball was taken in the midfield area by Saints Matt Le Tissier. It was a poor turn of events after that as Le Tissier got a shot from over 30 yards despite gliding along the pitch at a slow pace.

As Taibi stepped ahead to pick up the ball, a cataclysm of sorts occurred as it went through his hands rolled into the net behind. Shock, anger and resentment grew in the air as Taibi was sacked and never played a game for Manchester United again.