Real Madrid continue to benefit from Thibaut Courtois in outstanding form. The Belgian goalkeeper has conceded only two goals in the team’s last six matches under Xabi Alonso and is recording his best seasonal numbers since joining the club seven years ago. Courtois has saved 77.4% of the shots on target he has faced this season, and in the most recent six-match stretch between international breaks he has been almost unbeatable, stopping 18 of the last 20 shots on target.

Real Madrid’s league lead and place in the Champions League top eight have been built on Mbappé’s 18 goals but also on Courtois’s decisive stops. The goalkeeper from Bree has played every minute so far and has kept a clean sheet in half of the team’s matches this season, with eight shutouts in sixteen games. His performances range from the comfortable win over Osasuna, who did not register a single shot on target, to the four saves he made against Juventus in the Champions League, and the eight interventions that kept the team alive at Anfield. “Courtois isn’t just what he does between the posts, which is probably making him the best goalkeeper in the world, it’s his personality and his understanding of the game,” Xabi Alonso said on the eve of the match against the Italian side.

Courtois has made 41 saves out of 53 shots on target, slightly surpassing his best save percentage with Real Madrid, beating the 77.3% he posted in the 2021-22 season, the year of the Champions League comebacks and his standout displays in Paris against PSG and in the final against Liverpool. It is worth noting that in 2023-24, the year of his injury, he technically posted a 100% save rate with 19 stops out of 19, although that comes from a very limited sample of five matches, including the Champions League final against Dortmund.

These figures reinforce Courtois’s bid for his fourth Zamora Trophy. He has conceded only 10 goals in 12 league matches, averaging 0.83 per game, the best record among the 15 goalkeepers who have played at least ten matches in the competition. His saves in games such as those against Getafe and Vallecas have earned crucial points, helping Xabi Alonso’s team head into the international break at the top of the league.

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