Goalkeepers are a rare breed. They play with their hands while everyone else has to develop skills using their feet. They like to stand up, be different and they have lots of time to think.

They are part of the team but quite separate and no one can really share their joys and worries because they are always a step away from catastrophe, something that helped to define the personalities of Che Guevara, Pope John Paul II, Vladimir Nabokov, Albert Camus and Julio Iglesias, all of whom started in goal before going on to bigger things.

Petr Cech, the Chelsea and Czech Republic goalkeeper, loves the fact that he is different from the rest. “I enjoy being dressed differently, having a different role, different rules,” he said. “I used to be a midfielder with the youth team in my hometown club of FC Viktoria Plzen and as I was tall sometimes I would be in goal. I broke my leg at ten and moved definitively to goal.”

So, with the privileged position of having been a threat to goalkeepers and also one himself, the Czech analyses his principal rivals at Euro 2008.

Iker Casillas

He could be the key player for Spain in this tournament. He has been brilliant playing for Real Madrid over the past two seasons in La Liga and he is one of the key reasons why they won back-to-back titles. Alongside Fernando Torres, the Spain goalkeeper will be decisive, I am sure.

He is one of the fastest keepers in the world and he has unbelievable reflexes. It does not matter whether you are playing at club or international level, you always need a keeper you can depend upon. Iker Casillas is one of those keepers who always seems to be at his best in the really difficult games when he has hardly got anything to do but reacts when needed in those emergency situations.

You always know that he will be where you need him to be. He has been playing at the top level since he was very young and has a great deal of experience behind him.

Jens Lehmann

Lehmann is one of the most experienced keepers at the tournament; at 38 he is certainly the oldest. He has had many years playing at the top level in the Bundesliga and in the Premier League and his performances for Germany during the qualifiers showed how important he is to his country.

Lehmann is going to be a key player for Germany, although I hear that there are doubts about his level of performances after spending most of the season on the bench. That should not influence him and that is his biggest strength – mentally he is very powerful and nothing seems to faze him.

As well as being hugely experienced, he can control the space behind his defence very well and is not afraid to come off his line.

Edwin van der Sar

I do not really know what else you can say about him that everyone else has not said. He is captain of the Holland team at this tournament, always a gesture to someone who is important on and off the pitch, and he is tremendously experienced. He has been brilliant for Manchester United over the past couple of seasons and one of the reasons why they won the Barclays Premier League title and the Champions League last season. He is another keeper that clearly enjoys his football.

As a goalkeeper, Van der Sar can do everything. He is very good at coming off his line and he is also effective as a libero – what they call in England a “sweeper keeper”. He does that very well for United and he is the kind of goalkeeper every top team in the world would love to have.

Gianluigi Buffon

He is widely regarded as the best in the world, and rightly so. He has proved himself at the top level for many years and has been outstandingly consistent. He made his debut as a teenager. He is the man every defender in the world would love to have standing behind them and he manages to inspire those in front of him.

He is always in the right place at the right time and, like all great keepers, he is decisive in the important games on the big stage. He is a great athlete who covers angles magnificently and his positional sense is extraordinary.

Buffon is fearless and has no obvious weaknesses. He has been outstanding for Juventus and was one of Italy’s most important players at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, where they were victorious, but what is amazing is that he has been playing like that for years. He never seems to make a mistake.

Grégory Coupet

He had a really difficult time of things last year, playing for Lyons. Of course, he really suffered because of that bad injury to his knee, but I think that after he came back into the national team in the new year, he seems to be back on good form and at the right time.

However, we will have to wait and see how he plays for France at the tournament. He is another experienced goalkeeper, a key player for Lyons for about a decade and he has succeeded Fabian Barthez as the first choice for France, but there must be question marks over his fitness and how much that injury has harmed him.

A longer version of this article appears on guillembalague.com