Keeper

Since today marked the opening games of the 2010 World Cup, and the day was light on the heroes of the day, I decided to draft the fellow above as a substitute hero of the day. His name is Thomas Ravelli, and he was born August 13th, 1959. His claim to fame is tied into the outfit he is wearing. It is the outfit of a goalkeeper for the national team I follow, Sweden. Since Sweden is currently in Group M (M as in Motherfuckers did not qualify) of the World Cup being played in South Africa, I thought I would relive some of their glory days. M. Ravelli was born in Vimmerby, Sweden, the son of Austrian immigrant with Italian descent. At the club level, he played around 200 games for Oster IF, and for IFK Goteborg of the Swedish league, but his major claim to my hero status is his performance in the 1994 World Cup. He eventually would earn a total of 143 caps with the Swedish national team, and his moment of glory was saving two penalty kicks in the quarterfinal match between Sweden and Romania (which Sweden won 5-4 on penalties). Those magic saves allowed Sweden to eventually finish third in the 1994 World Cup, one of the high points in their soccer history. Ravelli was a bit of a loon (as most goalkeepers are), and was known to do cartwheels after big saves. I still have an image of him cartwheeling off the pitch after the above mentioned victory. It is for those big saves, and every other game he turned out for the Swedish national side that Thomas Ravelli (August 13th, 1950-present), you are my (290th) hero of the day.