Patient Hilario is my hero of the week

1:02pm Friday 11th April 2008

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There can surely be no more depressing position in a squad than the understudy goalkeeper.

Forget playing two up front, going 4-3-3 or five at the back. Logically, there can only be one keeper at any one time.

So back-up Billy sits on the bench. He sits and he waits for the call to come.

And if the first-choice stays fit and reasonably consistent, then that wait can be a very long time indeed. The odd outing in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy is scant consolation.

Russell Howarth was prepared to put up with it for a couple of years until his City contract expired but few others are so happy to sit and watch.

Most will bang down the manager's door for a loan move, such as Rhys Evans, while youngsters like Scott Loach may be sent out for experience.

Loach is even further down the pecking order - there are two keepers above him at Watford - and when did you ever hear of keeper number three suddenly getting a game?

Which brings me to Hilario, my Champions' League hero of the week.

It's not just his name which brings a smile but the fact that Chelsea's much-hyped hopes of conquering Europe were resting on the shoulders of a bloke whose biggest transfer fee wouldn't even cover Frank Lampard's boot deal.

When Hilario left a third-division side in Italy nine years ago, he cost £100,000. Yet without him, Chelsea's lavishly-assembled squad of multi-millionaires might not be looking forward to their fourth Champions' League semi-final in five seasons.

Hilario has been thrust into the spotlight before when Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini were both felled in that infamous game at Reading. But he surely could not have imagined a summons for duty at the business end of the battle for Europe?

But first Cech goes down in a training ground accident, then Cudicini pulls his thigh early on against Fenerbahce. So suddenly our hero is called out from the shadows to fend off the rampaging Turks and protect Chelsea's precious lead.

Hilario did a grand job with a couple of big saves to book yet another last-four showdown with Liverpool. With Cudicini struggling, he could remain centre stage at Anfield.

And surely that must be the light at the end of the tunnel for even the most fed-up number two number one. Every understudy has his day.

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