Jordan Pickford Wins 2025/26 Coca-Cola Save of the Season
Jordan Pickford has been crowned the 2025/26 Coca-Cola Save of the Season winner, and it took a stop of staggering audacity to do it.
Deep into stoppage time at St James’ Park, Everton were clinging to a 3-2 lead over Newcastle United. One more attack, one more delivery into the box, one more desperate swing of a boot. Sandro Tonali met it perfectly, thundering a volley that screamed towards the top corner. The home crowd were already half out of their seats.
Pickford ripped the moment away from them.
The Everton goalkeeper exploded to his right, flung up a strong hand and somehow diverted the ball onto the crossbar and away to safety. Not just a save. A match-winner. The kind of intervention that decides seasons as much as any goal.
That instant has now been judged the best of the campaign, topping a shortlist of 10 outstanding stops for the Coca-Cola Save of the Season award. Nine of those had already taken Premier League Save of the Month honours, with only Antonin Kinsky’s fingertip denial for Tottenham Hotspur against Leeds United in May breaking that monopoly.
Pickford’s effort first took the February Save of the Month prize, one of two monthly awards he collected in 2025/26. No other goalkeeper managed more than one. Those two took his career tally to four Save of the Month awards, a Premier League record, underlining his enduring status among the elite.
The reaction inside Everton’s camp told its own story. David Moyes, not a man given to hyperbole, could barely contain his admiration.
“It was worthy of a goal,” the Everton manager said. “Tonali couldn't have hit that any better or any sweeter if he tried again. It was technically brilliant, his volley, but I have to say that the save was out of this world.”
From the stands and the studio, the verdict matched the manager’s. Alan Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time leading scorer with 260 goals and no stranger to spectacular finishes at St James’ Park, called it “world class”.
“It is a brilliant strike from Sandro Tonali, but an unbelievable save,” Shearer said. “The reaction to get that onto the bar was remarkable.”
Inside the dressing room, the praise went even further. Jarrad Branthwaite, who had the perfect view of the moment from in front of his goalkeeper, labelled it “the best save I have ever seen”.
The award itself reflects more than just one flash of brilliance. Pickford topped a field that included standout stops from James Trafford, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Martin Dubravka, David Raya, Alphonse Areola, Aaron Ramsdale, Karl Darlow and Kinsky, winning through a combination of public votes and the judgment of a panel of football experts.
This is not new territory for him. The England international has now claimed the Coca-Cola Save of the Season twice, adding this 2025/26 honour to his success in 2021/22, the inaugural year of the award. When the conversation turns to defining saves in the Premier League era, his name keeps coming back.
On a night when Newcastle thought they had found their hero in Tonali, it was Pickford who walked away with the moment that will live longest. And with every new award, the question grows louder: just how high can he push the standard for what a goalkeeper can do?
