"Atletico Madrid have made the most expensive signing of a goalkeeper in the history of the Spanish league. The 16 million euros that Benfica received for Slovenian Jan Oblak is a national record... and a 'top ten' in the history of soccer."
This is how MARCA announced the arrival of Jan Oblak on July 17, 2014. Atlético de Madrid had just won LaLiga 13/14 and could not afford to buy Thibaut Courtois after being on loan for three years from Chelsea. The void was so great that any goalkeeper who came would have a hard time playing up to his level.
At that time, the signing of Jan Oblak was accompanied by the signing of Miguel Ángel Moyá, theoretically the Slovenian's backup goalkeeper. However, things did not initially go as expected for Jan Oblak. Moyá's spectacular level combined with a disastrous game by the entire team against Olympiakos marked him out and he was relegated to the bench.
The Champions League Gave Him a Second Chance
During the first half of that season, his participation was limited to the Copa del Rey and the Champions League match mentioned above, until the day of the Bayer Leverkusen match arrived. It was the second leg of the round of 16 and Atlético de Madrid was playing to advance to the next round when, in the 23rd minute, Miguel Ángel Moyá was injured: time for Jan Oblak.
The whole Vicente Calderón stadium was silent when they saw their first-choice goalkeeper go off injured, but the important matches are reserved for the best players: It was the Slovenian's turn. The match went to penalties and in the shoot-out he emerged as a hero, stopping a decisive penalty from Hakan Çalhanoğlu to go through to the quarter-finals.
Straight to the Hall of Fame of Atlético Legends
A decade later, 450 games and 162 clean sheets later, he is still defending the red and white goal. Probably, not even Oblak himself expected what was going to happen to him under the command of Diego Pablo Simeone, who has always defended him: "He is our Messi."
He is currently the foreigner with the most matches in the history of Atlético de Madrid and is 34 matches behind the third-placed team with the most matches. A record of matches without conceding a goal is not insignificant, as he is in sixth place. Above him, two matches behind Santiago Cañizares, eleven behind fourth and fifteen behind third: Víctor Valdés and Iker Casillas, respectively.
The 235 unbeaten matches of the absolute leader of this classification, Andoni Zubizarreta, seem a long way off, although with Jan Oblak anything is possible. He has four years left on his contract and if he maintains his elite performance, as in most of the previous years, he may surprise some.
In addition to all this, we cannot forget to mention that he holds the 'Zamora de Oro', an award that is only given to goalkeepers who have won five 'Zamoras'. Currently only Antoni Ramallets, Víctor Valdés and Jan Oblak have it.