The competitive nature of poker has made it an attractive pastime for athletes.
Tennis pros, Olympians, and NBA stars have all played poker during and after their career.
The same is true for many football players, with Teddy Sheringham, Max Kruse, and Cristiano Ronaldo all known to be prolific poker players.
While poker suits these players’ attacking mindsets, it is also a game that rewards defensive, commanding, and agile play.
These are all attributes of Modern Goalkeepers and a key reason why they are the foundation and backbone of all football teams.
It could also be why some goalkeepers have traded the football pitch for the poker table and found some success at the felt. In this post, we cover three such goalkeepers.
Kristian Tórður Thomsen
Though not known to many football fans, Kristian Tórður Thomsen has been a professional footballer for 20 years in the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark and Denmark.
He has played for twelve clubs, including the Danish club SC Egedal, and has made two international appearances for the Faroe Islands.
During his career, he shared the field with goalkeeping legends Gianluigi Buffon and Manuel Neuer before injury forced him to retire in 2012.
During this period, Tórður Thomsen turned to poker as a new challenge, participating in and winning tournaments.
Tórður Thomsen had considered himself done with football and was looking at a future as a poker pro.
However, a year after retiring, Tórður Thomsen was back on the pitch for B36 Tórshavn and continues to play to this day for B68 Toftir, making him the only goalkeeper who traded the football pitch for the poker table and then traded back again.
Gianluigi Buffon
Considered to be one of the greatest European goalkeepers, Buffon had a massive impact on Italian football.
Buffon is also one of football’s most highly decorated players, having won the 2006 World Cup and collected 10 Serie A titles with Juventus and a Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint Germain.
Buffon was also known as a highly regarded poker player throughout his career.
In 2010, he was made a PokerStars ambassador, joining a roster of top players, including Chris Moneymaker.
Moneymaker is one of poker’s biggest stars and is famous for his underdog win in the 2003 World Series of Poker, where he walked away with $2.5 million.
Nowadays, he’s an Americas Cardroom poker pro, and is still celebrated for disrupting the poker world forever.
Both Buffon and Moneymaker are titans of their respective sports, so it was natural for them to be made ambassadors.
While Buffon has a long way to go before he matches Moneymaker on the felt, he is undoubtedly the most successful goalkeeper who plays poker.
Keylor Navas
The Costa Rican goalkeeper has made a name for himself at two of the biggest clubs in the world: Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.
With Real Madrid, he won La Liga and the Supercopa de España in 2017, as well as three Champions Leagues, and with Paris Saint-Germain, he won Ligue 1 three times.
Navas is still playing today, with AP News reporting that he recently joined the Argentinian club Newell’s Old Boys.
While his football career may be winding down, Navas could be looking to transfer to the poker table.
A keen poker player, he developed his poker skills while playing at Paris Saint-Germain.
Alongside Neymar and Leandro Paredes, Navas regularly played poker, with Neymar considering him one of his main poker rivals.
Navas could be a top poker player if he can be as successful at poker as he is on the pitch.
