WORLD CUP RECORDS (Part 23) - LONGEST GOALKEEPER'S UNBEATEN STREAK
Picture : Walter Zenga, winner of 3 IFFHS Awards, is the leader !
Longest goalkeeper’s unbeaten streak: Walter Zenga
*Walter Zenga managed to keep his net untouched at 1990 World Cup during 516 consecutive minutes. This is longest unbeaten series for goalkeepers in the history of competition.
Zenga didn’t concede in 5 first games of Italy national team: vs Austria (1-0), vs United States (1-0), vs Czechoslovakia (2-0), vs Uruguay (2-0), vs Republic of Ireland (1-0). This series was broken in 6th game (semifinal) vs Argentina (1-1) when Zenga conceded from Claudio Caniggia on 67th minute.
*In total, 9 goalkeepers in the whole World Cup history stood 400+ consecutive minutes without conceding. In 3 cases (Peter Shilton, Iker Casillas, Sepp Maier) a series started at one edition and finished after 4 years at the following.
*The goalkeeper with most consecutive minutes without conceding at World Cup qualification is Richard Wilson (New Zealand). During the qualifying tournament to 1982 edition, he was unbeaten for 921 minutes producing 9 clean sheets in a row.
| LONGEST GOALKEEPER | UNBEATEN STREAKS | IN | WORLD CUPS | ||
| Player | Country | Min. | From | To | |
| 1 | Walter Zenga | Italy | 516 | 09/06/1990 | 03/07/1990 |
| 2 | Peter Shilton | England | 500 | 16/06/1982 | 03/06/1986 |
| 3 | Iker Casillas | Spain | 476 | 25/06/2010 | 13/06/2014 |
| 4 | Sepp Maier | Germany | 474 | 07/07/1974 | 18/06/1978 |
| 5 | Gianluigi Buffon | Italy | 459 | 17/06/2006 | 09/07/2006 |
| 6 | Emerson Leão | Brazil | 457 | 03/06/1978 | 21/06/1978 |
| 7 | Gordon Banks | England | 441 | 11/07/1966 | 26/07/1966 |
| 8 | Oliver Kahn | Germany | 426 | 05/06/2002 | 30/06/2002 |
| 9 | Carlos | Brazil | 400 | 01/06/1986 | 21/06/1986 |