Chelsea's on-loan goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has been awarded the 2012/13 Ricardo Zamora award by Marca. The Zamora trophy is awarded to the La Liga goalkeeper with the best goals to games ratio, but is limited to goalkeepers who have made at least 28 appearances during the season. Courtois has the best ratio of any La Liga keeper by a fairly wide margin, as 3rd place Atletico have only allowed 30 goals during the entire 2012/13 campaign.

Courtois is the first goalkeeper not from one of the two biggest clubs to win the award since the 2006/07 season. The last four Zamora's have all gone to Barcelona's Victor Valdes, with the one before that going to Iker Casillas.

Technically, it should be 28 goals conceded for Courtois (or less). Own goals aren't really his fault. So I discluded the own goals scored in the matches against RM and Barca. If you take away any other own goals along the course of the season, his goals-conceded-per-game ratio could be even better.

By the way, I find it odd that the EPL's version of this award goes to the keeper who keeps the most clean sheets, rather than the keeper with the best goals-conceded-per-game ratio, which is a much better statistic to use to judge goalkeepers. Anyone know why the EPL don't use this format?

Forgot to mention. Congrats to Courtois. Well deserved! :)

Because clean sheets indicate a better defensive performance?

@Lodatz

But in the end, this award is delivered into the hands of the GK, not to the defense. If you're gonna give out an award for clean sheets, give it out to a team, not a GK. By giving it out to the GK, it indicates that you are crediting SOLELY the GK for the clean sheet, whereas keeping a clean sheet is a combined team effort.

As for goals conceded however, it is the GK's credit. No matter how good or bad his defense is, the GK is the last man, and he must make himself as superhuman as possible to stop the ball from going into the back of his net. I personally feel that the clean sheet award (if there even SHOULD be one) ought to be delivered to a team, not a GK. The GK should win an award for best goals-conceded-per-game ratio.

The flip side of that of course being when the defense is so poor that they leave the goalkeeper no chance, and a strong team puts 4 or 5 goals past him.

You couldn't blame a keeper for that, so, he's screwed by your way too.

I just think clean-sheets mean more than goal difference.

@Lodatz

You know what other statistic can be used to judge this? Saves per goal conceded. Plays a HUGE role. I think Asmir Begovic has the best ratio of this in England at the moment, and either Thibaut Courtois, Willy Caballero, or Diego Lopez have the best in Spain (not sure).

That sounds like a pretty good method, definitely. :)