Bundesliga goalkeeper: Vasilj and Atubolu – penalty are their specialty

With five penalty, Noah Atubolu is now the sole record holder in the Bundesliga. Nikola Vasilj, the goalkeeper of FC St. Pauli, comes up with an even better quota.

There are many types of opportunities in football, even one that cannot exist at all, and that is the “100 %”. The huge chance is preferable to the great chance, which in turn is much better seen in the attacking team than the reasonably good chance that can result in boring games from a shot from 28 meters, which was released from a slightly pointed angle and still slightly deflected.

It sometimes takes to describe the quality of a chance of those who do not see a game. However, there is also an opportunity in which a word is enough: penalty.

Strong quota against weak quota at the Millerntor

It could be called “penalty in Hamburg” on Saturday if the afternoon games on the various radio waves and the sports show app are transmitted in full length from 3:30 p.m. The Millerntor is played in Hamburg on Saturday. FC St. Pauli meets Bayer Leverkusen.

At St. Pauli, Nikola Vasilj is likely to stand in the goal, with the Leverkusener Mark Flekken.

Flekken last kept a penalty in February 2018, at that time he still played for MSV Duisburg. Since then, 17 penalties have been transformed against him, whether in the club or with the Dutch national team.

He held two out of 41 penalty, to whom flekken was faced with during the professional career.

Vasilj only collects one of seven penalty

Nikola Vasilj last held a penalty on September 19, 2025, on the fourth matchday on the defeat at VfB Stuttgart. Before that, he held a penalty from Serhou Guirassy at the 3: 3 against Borussia Dortmund at the start of the season.

In the second half of last season, he also held penalty against VfB Stuttgart and SC Freiburg, only Mohamed Amoura from VfL Wolfsburg was in the meantime against the Bosnian goalkeeper.

Vasilj’s balance sheet in the Bundesliga is exceptional. He held six out of seven penalty, which corresponds to a quota of 85.7 percent. In the 2nd league it was significantly lower, for the professional career Vasilj comes to 31 percent.

Atubolu sole record holder

This is a little better than the balance of Noah Atubolu. The goalkeeper of SC Freiburg is only 62.5 percent for the Bundesliga. He held five out of eight penalty, and this one after the other. The penalty held on the fourth matchday at the victory in Bremen meant a record. Nobody had never kept five penalty in series before.

After the 3-0 victory in Bremen, in which he defended a penalty of Romano Schmid, Atubolu thanked his entire goalkeeper team with coaches and competitors who “always give him input” so that he could “draw the right conclusions from it.

In the past, he said that he would like the duel “I against the striker alone”, “a few head games, my tricks that I always use”. Which tricks: “I don’t say that, in no way. I can’t betray my tricks, then they no longer work.”

Nikola Vasilj looked annoyed after the 0: 2 at VfB Stuttgart when he was asked for his recipe for success. “I am asked for every penalty held, but I have no secret,” he said.

Meet the Penalty specialists in Freiburg

Four goalkeepers had shared the record of four penalty in the Bundesliga with Atubolu until Saturday: Thomas Zander (TSV 1860 Munich, season 1979/80), Hans-Jörg Butt (Hamburger SV, 1999/2000), Frank Rost (FC Schalke 04, 2005 to 2007) and Bernd Leno (Bayer Leverkusen, 2013/14).

Record holder ATUBOLU meets the Freiburgers on 1899 Hoffenheim on Sunday and thus to a colleague who also knows how to deal with penalty very well. Oliver Baumann defended 16 out of 70 penalty in the Bundesliga for Hoffenheim and in front of Freiburg, which results in a quota of 23 percent.

In absolute numbers, only three goalkeepers defended more penalty than Baumann, as the table shows. Rudi Kargus, who became the Hamburg SV German champion in the late 1970s and won the European Cup winner, was at a clear distance.

Because of his skills, he got the nickname “penalty slower” and even released a single: “You can also hold a penalty”.

Michael Rensing and Roman Bürki could have used good advice. They never kept a penalty in the Bundesliga. They each had the opportunity 23 times.