This week: Goalkeeper who almost stopped Celtic's Lisbon Lions triumph, the man who cut through the Iron Curtain, and an experimental novelist
GIULIANO SARTI, who has died aged 83, was the legendary Inter Milan goalkeeper who almost stopped Celtic's Lisbon Lions triumph.
Sarti came close to defying Jock Stein's men in the European Cup Final in Lisbon on May 25, 1967. He kept the Scots at bay for over an hour as the Italians defended a seventh-minute penalty-kick from Sandro Mazzola.
Tommy Gemmell, who died on March 3 this year at 73, finally beat him with an unstoppable effort and Stevie Chalmers hit the winner five minutes from time.
Sarti faced an incredible 42 attempts on his goal in the Portuguese capital, but had no answer to Gemmell's shot.
Jock Stein praised the Italian at the time, saying: "It was one of the most remarkable goalkeeping performances I have ever witnessed."
Gemmell also once recalled what it was like trying to score against Sarti. “Sarti was having the game of his life," he said. “He pulled off a save from me in the first-half which I still rate as one of the best I have ever seen. So, with that in mind, I was aware if I was going to score I would have to deliver an effort that would leave him helpless."
Sarti won two league titles and two European Cups – in 1964 and 1965 – during his five-year spell with Inter.
THE former Austrian foreign minister Alois Mock, who has died aged 82, made headlines when he and his Hungarian counterpart cut through fencing that represented the communist Iron Curtain separating the two countries.
Austrian leaders have also paid tribute to Mock as an architect of Austria's European Union membership.
Mock is most remembered for the fence-cutting ceremony on June 27 1989, with then-Hungarian foreign minister Gyula Horn. The moment was captured in iconic photos that made front pages worldwide.
At the time, there were few signs that the Iron Curtain would soon come down. But that symbolic opening between East and West was followed only months later with the first major event foreshadowing the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe.
After tens of thousands of East Germans turned their back on their hard-line communist homeland and flooded into Hungary in a desperate bid to transit to West Germany, Hungary — the Soviet bloc's most liberal member — opened its border with Austria and allowed them free passage.
Mock, a key figure of the centrist People's Party, served as foreign minister between 1987 and 1995.
He is survived by Edith Mock, his wife of 53 years.
THE writer Juan Goytisolo, who has died aged 86, was a Spanish novelist known for his experimental novels and political essays.
Goytisolo won Spain's most prestigious literary award, the Cervantes Prize, in 2014.
Marks of Identity is among his most highly regarded novels.
Culture minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo paid tribute to Goytisolo, comparing him with Spain's greatest writer, Miguel de Cervantes.
"Juan Goytisolo is one of the Cervantes Prize winners who most closely identified with the author of (Don) Quixote," Mr Mendez de Vigo said in a statement.
Goytisolo left Spain for France in 1956, moving to Morocco in 1996. He died in Marrakech.
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