India, June 17 -- Less than a week into this summer's FIFA World Cup in North America, there's been an interesting pattern across some of the goalkeepers in action.

They are older.

The mean age of all 145 goalkeepers at the tournament is 29 years and 298 days. 77 of them - more than half - are older than that, and 25 of them are aged 35 and above.

Scotland's Craig Gordon comfortably leads the list of the oldest goalkeepers, aged 43 years and 162 days. Mexico's iconic Guillermo Ochoa is second behind him (40y 333d). Neither of them played in their respective countries' first round matches, though, so the oldest keeper to have played in this year's tournament is the third name on the list, and the most famous - Germany's Manuel Neuer aga...