Manuel Neuer's Save Rate Dwarfs the Competition, Underlines World's Best Tag

A statistical analysis released by Opta, in conjunction with Goal.com, on Sunday revealed that Ballon d'Or candidate and Bayern Munich and Germany stopper Manuel Neuer has the best save percentage among all goalkeepers in Europe over the first half of the 2014-15 domestic season.

The 28-year-old has made 33 saves this season as his side have conceded just four goals, making his save rate an exceptional 89.19 percent. Second on the list is Roma veteran Morgan De Sanctis, well behind at 82.98 percent. Gladbach's Yann Sommer is third with 82.42 percent while Genoa's Mattia Perin (81.25 percent) and Gianluigi Buffon (80.65 percent) round out the top five.

Save percent is not the be-all and end-all of assessing a goalkeeper's class. In fact, it often will not particularly well correlate with a custodian's quality.

There are many other attributes and statistics that qualitatively and quantitatively assess the true class of a goalkeeper. Decision-making in coming off one's line is hugely important, as are aerial ability, foot skills, anticipation, communication with defenders, handling, positioning and reflexes, among many others.

Accordingly, it's no surprise to see the likes of De Sanctis, a good goalkeeper in his day but one who was never in the "world class" category and is currently past his prime, second to Neuer. Save percentage is nonetheless a useful statistic, and that Neuer is Europe's best in that regard and the distance by which he holds his record only go to further validate his claim of status as the world's best player in the goalkeeper position.

At 6.21 percent, the gap between Neuer and the rest of the pack in terms of save percentage may look significant, but big differences close to the 100 percent mark can be deceptive and are easily understated. If their respective save rates were closer to 50 percent, rate of concession would not be very different. But as it stands, for any number of shots, De Sanctis concedes a whopping 63 percent more goals.

Neuer's statistics become even more impressive when compared with other stars in more serious contention for status as the world's best goalkeeper, such as Manchester United's David de Gea and Chelsea's Thibaut Courtois.

Neuer's save percentage means that he concedes once for every 9.25 shots taken. Comparing with De Gea (73.4 percent of shots saved) and Courtois (71.1 percent, both stats accurate as of December 15, via the Premier League's official website), the United goalkeeper concedes every 3.76 shots and the Chelsea stopper every 3.46. That makes the Premier League duo respectively 2.46 and 2.67 times as likely to concede from a shot as Neuer.

Alone, Neuer's save percentage and the margin of his supremacy are impressive. Putting these figures into context, that they belong to a Ballon d'Or candidate who's widely regarded as the world's best goalkeeper shows that the statistic is not a fluke, as it might be with some lesser-regarded goalkeepers who may happen to have a high save percentage.

It shows that Neuer not only has his reputation and all the other qualitative characteristics that have earned him his status but also quantitative superiority that dwarfs his main contenders.

Neuer not only prevents chances with his trademark aggressive play in coming out of the box to play a sweeper-like role and coming off his line to collect crosses, he is far more effective in stopping shots once they're made than any other goalkeeper in Europe.

By appearances and by numbers, he's the toughest goalkeeper to beat in today's game. And one day, he just might be remembered as one of the best in football history.

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