Best Ligue 1 Goalkeepers of 2021

No one can claim that the French Ligue 1 is less attractive than other leagues, a league that has had many surprises over the years. In this article, we will introduce you to the Best Ligue 1 goalkeepers of 2021.

The players of a football team, only together, would achieve the desired result and victory. They have to come together just like a jigsaw puzzle to complete their puzzle of success. Imagine in a team, the defenders deliver the ball to the midfielders with all their heart and the play maker delivers the ball to the attackers, who also try their best to get the ball into the goal, but a little later the opposing team uses the inefficiency of the goalkeeper and could score a goal and eventually they will lose. In a team, it is the goalkeeper who hits the button to fire the final missile of a team's success, any mistake can be fatal.

The French Ligue 1 has made significant progress over the years, and thanks to the success of their national team, its popularity has raised again. The 2020/21 French Ligue 1 season was a fascinating season. There was an exciting suspension in every single match which lasted till the last competitions. We were lucky to see breathtaking performances in this tournament. Undoubtedly, one of the things that made this period of the French Ligue 1 more attractive and spectacular was the brilliance of its goalkeepers.

Top 5 Best Goal Keepers in French Ligue 1 2021

Today, our article is a true tribute to the men standing in the goal. The powerful guardians who do not take their eyes off the ball in awe and, if their team is on the verge of defeat, would leave the trench to rush to the aid of the team. The men in the last line of defense, the men who the hope of the fans is in their hands. In the list below we have selected a list of 2020-2021 Ligue 1 Goalkeepers stats, stay tuned.

Keylor Navas

The first name on our list of Best Ligue 1 goalkeepers of 2021, is Keylor Navas, the brilliant goalie who is mostly remembered for his magnific performances in La Liga, Real Madrid. The 34-year-old Navas owes his fame to his last football side, Real Madrid in which he spent five successful spells. Thanks to his perfect abilities and skills, he is widely considered as one of the world's best goalkeepers, the best in the history of CONCACAF, and one of the best in the history of Latin America. Since 2019, he has started playing for PSG on a four-year contract.

Costa Rica number one has had a great first season in French football. His second season was also passed perfectly, though at first, he lost the first two games due to the positive test of COVID-19, he soon backed on track, and on 20 April 2021, Navas was voted Ligue 1 Player of the Month for March, making him the first CONCACAF player to win the award. He has kept 16 clean sheets in the 2020-21 spell which helped the Parisians side a lot in the League. The former Real Madrid Goalie also has a league-high clean sheet percentage of 55.2%.

Mike Maignan

The second Best Ligue 1 goalkeepers of 2021, is Mike Maignan, the 25-year-old french goalie, who could gain a great reputation despite his young age. He joined the Paris Saint-Germain youth team in 2009 and then reached the first team, but at that time, he was not seen as he should have been and could not be included in the main squad of the Paris team. So he joined Lille in 2015, a decision that made him one of the best in France.

His success in League One also brought the young goalkeeper to the national team, and he is currently the guardian of the French national team in Euro 2020. Mike Maignan managed to finish the season with 21 clean sheets that helped his club Lille OSC ending at the top of the table. Once again as he could show perfect performances, he was named the best goalkeeper in Ligue 1. The 25-year-old helped preserve one of the most secure defenses in Ligue with a remarkable 55.4%, as he has the best total of clean sheets (21). He is undoubtedly one of the best goalkeepers in Ligue 1.

Benjamin Lecomte

The third Best Ligue 1 goalkeepers of 2021, is Benjamin Lecomte, the 30-year-old goalie of Monaco. Being born in France, he has started his youth football as a goalkeeper in his country, and then he could go through the ranks and reach Ligue 1 side, Montpellier, and then Monaco in 2019. The Monaco goalkeeper was impressive throughout the season. He had 13 clean sheets, which is an average of 46.4% clean sheets. By his great collaboration, he helped his side succeed in the UEFA Champions League play-offs for next season.

Let's move forward to see who is next on our list of Top 5 Best Goal Keepers in French Ligue 1 2021.

Benoît Costil

Benoit Costil is our fourth Ligue 1 2021 best goalkeepers. Being born on 3 July 1987, Benoit started his career at Caen in Ligue 2 which wasn't that successful. He soon went on loan and as he could prove his talents, he could break into one of the best Ligue 1 sides. In 2017, he joined Bordeaux, and later in July 2019, he extended his contract until 2022.

He has always been a fixed part of FC Girondins Bordeaux in the last season. The 33-year-old kept 14 impressive clean sheets in 2020-21 spell and had an amazing number of saving in Ligue with 101. Thanks to his outstanding performances, Bordeaux could finish in the twelfth league at the table.

Anthony Lopes

Anthony Lopes, the 30-year-old Portuguese goalkeeper is the fifth player on our list of 2020-2021 Ligue 1 Goalkeepers stats. Lopes was born on 1 October 1990 in France but he is of Portuguese origin. He was only a nine-year-old boy once he had started his amateur football by joining Olympique Lyonnais's youth system. Soon, he got promoted to the higher ranks of Lyon's side and finally broke into the first team for the 2012–13 season, as the third goalie behind Rémy Vercoutre and Mathieu Valverde. His unstable position got better as Vercoutre got injured, so Anthony Lopes became the first-choice goalkeeper and preserved his position even after Vercoutre's recovery.

The 2020-21 spell, was Lopes' ninth season in Ligue 1. Throughout the last season, the Portuguese goalkeeper performed well for Les Gones. During the last spell, in 38 appearances in Ligue 1, he gained 11 clean sheets, which is an impressive clean sheet percentage of 28.9%. He also has the records of 92 saves in the previous Ligue 1 season. Lyon could finish 4th in the league and qualified for Europa League spot thanks to Lopes's brilliant and influential performances.

Alban Lafont

The next name on our list of Ligue 1 2021 best goalkeepers, is a 22-year-old goalie who, according to many experts, will be the future star of the French national team. Alban Marc Lafont was born on 23 January 1999 in Burkina Faso. He was of mixed descent, his father is French and his mother is from Burkinabe. But after the separation of his parents, he comes to France with his father, where the golden destiny of this 9-year-old boy is decided. In France, he soon started his football in AS Lattoise but at first as an attacking midfielder and then as a goalkeeper. Having passed six years in AS, he could break into Toulous in 2014.

Once he successfully passed the academy at Toulouse, he managed to reach the first team and was given the chance to play in Ligue 1 at the age of 16 years and 310 days, so he broke the record of Mickaël Landreau and became the youngest ever goalkeeper to play in Ligue 1. His remarkable talent as a goalkeeper soon took him to the next level and, he managed to conquer the two main goalkeepers of the team, Ali Ahamada, and Mauro Goicoechea, and become the number one goalkeeper of Toulouse. This development introduced him to the world, and a little later, the Italian publication La Gazzetta Dello Sport introduced him as the 34th best U-20 player in the world.

Although he initially played as a striker, he seems to have been born a goalkeeper by nature. He is the encouragement of his team's defense. Lafont distribution usually tends to be longer balls up to the fast attackers, a technique which comes in handy for Toulous especially against his more important opponent. However, his experience as a player has given him the confidence to be able to control the ball well with his feet, and as good as he is at tricking the opponent's striker, he can pass the ball from the net into the defense and make preparations of a good attack. All these features have made him one of the best goalkeepers in the French Ligue 1 last season. In the 2020-21 season, as the first-choice goalkeeper of Nantes, he managed to have 5 clean sheets in 38 appearances, so his clean sheets percentage is 13.2. Also, throughout the previous spell, he had 111 saves.

Jean-Louis Leca

Jean-Louis Leca is the next player on our list of the best goalkeepers in the 2020-21 season of Ligue 1. Perhaps in this list, his name is less familiar to others. But that does not mean he is an incompetent goalkeeper. He was born on December 21, 1985, in France. He started playing football for Bastia in Ligue 2, in France at the age of eighteen, staying with the team from 2003 to 2005 and then he joined Valenciennes after 34 appearances. A decision that was not pleasant for him at all, because during his 5-year tenure, from 2008 to 2013, he played only one game.

After his unsuccessful presence in this team, he returned to his former team in 2013, and this time he managed to be a goalkeeper in eighty games in 4 years (2013-2017). He then decided to join Ajaccio in the French Ligue 2 for a year from 2017 to 2018, during which time he played in 33 games. In 2018, the 35-year-old goalkeeper joined the Lens team, a contract that has continued to this day. His performance in last season's French Ligue 1 put him on our list, despite his lack of fame, he had nine clean sheets in 37 games during the 2020-21 season, ranking 24th with 24.3%. In addition to his acceptable clean sheet record, he has 85 successful saves.

Predrag Rajković

Our list of ten people reaches eighth place. Predrag Rajković, a 25-year-old Serbian goalkeeper who has only qualified for the French Ligue 1 since 2019, is eighth on our list, a young goalkeeper with a bright future ahead of him. When he was seven years old, he started playing football with his father, first playing for his hometown team, and then pursuing his football career more extensively and seriously. After a long journey in his home country, he joined Stade de Reims in July 2019 on a four-year deal worth € 3 million. He showed his ability from the very beginning and last season, with a record of 10 clean sheets (and 27%), he was ranked sixth among the top goalkeepers of last season in the French Ligue 1. The 25-year-old has also had 85 successful saves over the past season.

Alexandre Oukidja

Ninth on our list is Alexandre, a player of Algerian descent but raised in France. He was born on July 19, 1988, in France. Football soon became serious for the 32-year-old goalkeeper, who joined Gueugnon in 2005 when he was seven years old. There, he played as a half-time substitute goalie for the team, and then in the following seasons he joined the second squad of Lille and then he finally managed to break into the main team and play in the Ligue one as the first-choice goalkeeper.

Having passed 7 years in Lille, he joined Championnat National side Aviron Bayonnais on a six-month loan deal and then Strasburge and in the end, in 2018 he signed his contract with Metz. His first spell at Metz was spent in Ligue 2 but his second was successfully passed in Ligue 1. Throughout the 2020-21 spell, he managed to hold the record of 8 clean sheets in 38 matches with a remarkable 23.5 %. Also in the previous spell, Alexandre has 89 saves with Metz.

Let's move forward to see who is the last one on our list of the best Ligue 1 goalkeepers in 2020/21.

Walter Benítez

The 28-year-old Argentine goalkeeper of Nice is the last name on our list. Walter Benitez was born on 19 January 1993. As he turned 10, he started his youth-level football in Quilmes Atlético Club in Greater Buenos Aires. He tried hard to prove his strength points to be able to broke into the senior team of Quilmes. After almost three years in his country and playing in 48 matches, in 2016 he could break into Ligue 1 as he signed his contract with Nice which lasted till the present moment. In the last Ligue 1 spell, had 9 clean sheets with 23.7 % that put him on the 9th rank of the best Ligue 1 goalkeepers. It is true that his clean sheet record is not that impressive, but he has managed to be in second place with the highest number of saves with a record of 121 successful saves.

The above names were the names of the goalkeepers who achieved the best results and showed the best performance during the ups and downs of the French Football League, which, like other leagues, struggled with Corona. As you can read, the competition between these young goalkeepers is very intense, a competition that will help improve the quality of future games in this league.