Juventus and Gianluigi Buffon, Manchester United and Edwin Van Der Sar, Real Madrid -Iker Casillas, are all goalies synonymous with their clubs.
Chelsea, too, had a great goalkeeper during their dominant years- Petr Cech. The Czech Republic stopper is a legend at Stamford Bridge in spite of his surprise Arsenal transfer.
Over the seasons, Chelsea have had some other great players between the sticks since 1992 (beginning of the Premier League).
1. Petr Cech
After making an astonishing 494 appearances for the west London side during the Roman Abramovich era, the Chelsea icon called time with his beloved club six years ago.
The Czech Republic international goalkeeper became one of the division’s greatest goalkeepers and lifted every trophy available during his time at Stamford Bridge. He was the ever-present and reassuring presence at the back for the club.
He has the record for most successive clean sheets in the league. Petr had ten clean sheets in the 2004/05 season in a row. He played 1024 minutes without shipping a goal.
2. Ed de Goey
Ed de Goey is an iconic figure at Chelsea. He was there before the Russian billionaire took over back in 2003 and is part of the Blues DNA during the 90’s era.
The Dutch international became the team’s primary keeper back in 1997 after arriving from Feyenoord. Ed held the spot until Italian Carlo Cudicini replaced him in the ’00s.
He won the FA Cup title in 1990 and broke various records such as clean sheets and appearances.
3. Carlo Cudicini
Cudicini is still considered as one of the best Chelsea shot-stoppers of all time. In spite of consistent injuries that plagued the Italian throughout his career, he was a consistent starter for the Blues before the aforementioned Petr Cech arrived.
And even after the Czech Republic international arrived, Carlo managed to hold onto his place in the starting XI for a while before Petr took over.
He was voted the London outfit’s player of the year in the 2001/02 term. After that, things went downhill, and Carlo conceded his senior team place to Cech after injury woes kept him in the treatment room for large parts of the campaign in 2003/04.
Cudicini is currently a loan player, technical coach and club ambassador at the Premier League giants.
