The retirement of Joe Hart didn’t come as much of a surprise towards the back end of last season.
The veteran goalkeeper announced that he’d be hanging up his gloves at the campaign’s end in February which seemed to give his team a psychological boost for the run-in.
Indeed, between Hart confirming his playing career would end and the campaign closing, Celtic played 15 games, winning 13, drawing one, and losing another.
The Bhoys’ end-of-season form was nothing short of impeccable, and among others, the 37-year-old was a catalyst for it.
The big stopper was key as the Hoops did the double and was given an emotional send-off. He was serenaded on trophy day and in the Scottish Cup final a week later, ended his career on an almighty high, keeping a clean sheet against Rangers as his side won 1-0.
When he initially announced his retirement, Hart confirmed he didn’t want to go into coaching and instead, he will be a pundit for the BBC at the Euros. The Englishman has explained his decision.
“The reason I wanted to get into punditry is to educate people who are interested in goalkeeping, and hopefully I can help people understand the position a bit better”, he said (BBC).
“I’ll be trying my best to do that by giving a goalkeeper’s perspective, which can be very different to that of an outfield player. Sometimes when a goal goes in, the analysis you see on TV is about how the keeper should have done better, or has made a mistake.
“That can be the case, of course, and I am not here to protect goalkeepers from criticism, but part of the way I analysed my own performances during my career was to work out exactly why things happened.
“There is often a lot more to a goal than might first appear and I want to try to explore and explain that, and all the different variables that can affect the goalkeeper – from the positions they take up and how they work with their defenders, to the movement of the ball and everything else that is happening in front of them.
“These are things that might seem simple but they really aren’t – and I am willing to go into that detail.”
