Iker Casillas - The new Given is better than Buffon

If anything stood out from last night's Champion's League games it wasn't the 12-1 aggregate scoreline at the Bayern - Sporting game or even Liverpool's impressive 4-0 win over Real Madrid.

It was the Shay Given-esque performance of Iker Casillas.

The poor lad did absolutely nothing wrong, in fact he turned in a 'Man-of-the-Match' performance, but his side still managed to ship four goals.



















This scenario will be eerily familiar to Newcastle fans as this seemed to happen an awful lot to the Irish custodian. The last being a 5-0 loss against, coincidentally, Liverpool when, without 'MotM' Given, it could have been 10.

Liverpool could have, quite easily, won by five, six or even seven goals,last night, if Casillias didn't have the ability to pull off saves that, at times, defied the laws of physics and saved whatever dignity his non-existent defence had left.

His early save from Fernando Torres was made despite seemingly committing to the other direction and his flying stop from a spinning Mascherano drive is still hard to fathom, as he wouldn't have seen the ball until very late.

The Spanish stopper has been touted as one of the world's top 'keepers for a long time but has always been over shadowed by Italy's formidable Gianluigi Buffon. Yesterday night, however, added further evidence to claims that he has overtaken his Juventus counterpart.

The scary thing is that, at only 27-years-old (that's only two years older than Ben Foster, by the way), he has at least another 10 years in him at the top level, if he stays free from serious injury.

In the next year or two, if he hasn't already, he will overtake Buffon as the world's best and will have to make himself comfortable because he could be there for many years to come.

What do you think? Is Casillas now the best or is Buffon still the number one? Leave a comment.