Gianluigi Buffon He hung up his gloves (and his crampons) in 2023. Now, at 46, the Italian goalkeeper has a calmer daily life. After a life dedicated to football, the legend of Juventus He once again looked back on nearly three decades of his career in an interview. He talks about his relationship with Christian And Messi, Who were the best teams and players he played against, but he also revealed why he rejected the offer. Barcelona in 2021 before returning to Parma.
Throughout his professional career, Buffon he left once Italy. In 2018, the goal left the Juventus go to Paris Saint-Germain after 17 years of wearing the elastic bianconeri. However, the world champion (2006) only played one season with the Parisians and returned to Turin. At the end of its second stage, Europe He knocked on their door again. However, he decides to return to Parma, the club that formed him, all thanks to a simple chance of life. “I received an offer from Barcelona to be his second goalkeeper. I liked the idea of playing with it Messi, after playing with Christian. However, one day I was driving and a song from Jovanotti which I really liked and which I hadn’t heard for ten years: ‘Pretty’. I looked up and saw the sign Parma on the road. It was a sign. And that’s how I closed my career, where it all began,” he explained.
talk about Leon Messi, Buffon remembers a special moment after the final of the Champions League of 2015 with the Argentinian. “During the 2015 Champions League final, I noticed a hand on my back: ‘Gigi“Now, let’s exchange shirts?” he asked. 10 of the Barcelona. If he couldn’t play with him, he did with Cristiano Ronaldo. Regarding his relationship with the Portuguese star, Gianluigi shares the ins and outs of his past moments with CR7. “We have always had an excellent relationship, I saw in him great strength and great fragility, linked to the absence of his father, to the hard journey he had to face,” confesses the Italian.
But the best player he faced, and with whom he oddly played, was Neymar. “For the player and the boy he is, he should have won five Golden balls“, said the former goalkeeper in his interview with the ‘Corriere della Sera‘. He and the Brazilian shared a year in the locker room of PSG, when the transalpine quickly exiled himself from his beloved homeland before returning there a few months later. After almost 30 years as a professional footballer, Gianluigi Buffon He played over a thousand matches against hundreds of teams. However, two of the best were Spanish and he met them in the latter part of his career. “He Barcelona of 2015 and the Madrid of 2017 were the best teams of the last 20 years”, justified the Italian goalkeeper.
One of the most moving moments of the interview was when Buffon He talked about his biggest game: his battle with depression. “It was the end of 2003, after two Yescudetti followed by a slowdown. I had an emptiness ahead of me, I was starting to sleep badly, with the stress. “I had a panic attack on the field, I couldn’t breathe and I thought I couldn’t play,” he said. The rival was not a team or a player, but himself. Despite everything, the guardian stopped his great demons. “I rejected drugs, I was afraid of addiction. I was advised to have new passions outside of football and I discovered painting,” he concluded. Gianluigi.
