O goleiro defendeu o pênalti.

O is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

So:

• o goleiro = the goalkeeper
• o pênalti = the penalty / the penalty kick

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English does, so having o in both places is completely normal.

Goleiro means goalkeeper in Brazilian Portuguese, especially in soccer.

A few notes:

• In Brazil, goleiro is the normal everyday word.
• In European Portuguese, you may also hear guarda-redes.
• In Brazil, goleiro is strongly associated with soccer, though it can be used in other goal-based sports too depending on context.

Here, defendeu means saved or blocked.

Even though the verb defender is related to to defend, in sports Portuguese it often means:

• to stop a shot
• to save a penalty
• to make a save

So O goleiro defendeu o pênalti is naturally understood as:

• The goalkeeper saved the penalty
• or The goalkeeper blocked the penalty kick

Defendeu is in the pretérito perfeito, which is the simple past in Portuguese.

It means the action happened and was completed in the past:

• defendeu = saved / blocked

This is the ele/ela/você form of defender in that tense.

Examples:

• Eu defendi = I defended / I saved
• Ele defendeu = he defended / he saved
• Eles defenderam = they defended / they saved

Because defender is a regular -er verb, and regular -er verbs in the simple past use these endings:

• eu -i
• você/ele/ela -eu
• nós -emos
• vocês/eles/elas -eram

So:

• defender → stem defend-
• ele defendeu

Compare:

• vender → vendeu
• beber → bebeu
• perder → perdeu

So defendeu follows a normal pattern.

It can mean either one, depending on context.

In Brazilian Portuguese, pênalti may refer to:

1. the penalty foul / penalty situation
2. the penalty kick

In this sentence, because the goalkeeper defended it, pênalti clearly means the penalty kick, not the foul itself.

So here:

• defendeu o pênalti = saved the penalty kick

Pênalti is usually pronounced roughly like:

• PEN-aw-tchee in many Brazilian accents

More carefully:

• the ê shows a stressed closed e sound
• the stress falls on the first syllable: PÊ-nal-ti

The accent mark is there to show the stressed syllable and vowel quality.

For an English speaker, a useful approximation is:

• PEH-naw-chee or PEN-aw-chee

The exact final sound can vary by accent, but the key point is that the stress is on pê.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

oo go-leh-roh deh-fen-DEH-ooh oo PEN-aw-tchee

A few pronunciation tips:

• O before a consonant is often pronounced like oo
• goleiro sounds roughly like go-LEI-ro
  (with ei sounding somewhat like ay in say)
• defendeu has stress on the last syllable: de-fen-DEU
• pênalti has stress on the first syllable: PÊ-nal-ti

So the rhythm is roughly:

o goLEIro defenDEU o PÊnalti

Yes, Portuguese can often omit the subject, but in this specific sentence it is more natural to include it if you are introducing the information clearly:

• O goleiro defendeu o pênalti. = The goalkeeper saved the penalty.

If the subject is already obvious from context, you could hear:

• Defendeu o pênalti. = He/She saved the penalty.

However, because defendeu could refer to he/she/you, the explicit subject o goleiro removes ambiguity.

You can translate it literally word-for-word, but it sounds unnatural in English.

In Portuguese, defender is the normal verb in soccer for a goalkeeper stopping a shot. In English, we usually say:

• saved the penalty
• stopped the penalty
• blocked the penalty kick

So the literal translation is possible for learning structure, but the natural English translation is usually saved the penalty.

The normal word order is:

Subject + Verb + Object
O goleiro + defendeu + o pênalti

That is the most neutral and standard order.

Portuguese can change word order for style or emphasis, but in everyday speech this sentence is most naturally said as:

O goleiro defendeu o pênalti.

For a learner, this is the best pattern to remember.

Yes. A few common alternatives are:

• O goleiro pegou o pênalti.
  Literally The goalkeeper caught the penalty, but idiomatically saved the penalty.

• O goleiro agarrou o pênalti.
  More like The goalkeeper grabbed/saved the penalty.

• O goleiro defendeu a cobrança.
  The goalkeeper saved the kick/attempt.

Still, defendeu o pênalti is very standard and natural.

No, it is a borrowing from English penalty, adapted to Portuguese spelling and pronunciation.

That is why it may look familiar to an English speaker, but the pronunciation is different in Portuguese.

Brazilian Portuguese often uses pênalti in soccer contexts, while more formal alternatives like penalidade exist but are less common in everyday sports commentary.

Yes:

• goleiro is masculine, so it takes o
• pênalti is also treated as masculine, so it also takes o

If you were talking about a female goalkeeper, you would usually say:

• A goleira defendeu o pênalti.

So the article changes with the noun:

• o goleiro
• a goleira

But pênalti stays masculine:

• o pênalti