Legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon announces his retirement

One of the best goalkeepers in the history of football, Italian Gianluigi Buffon has announced the end of his unique professional career that lasted 28 years. Having won the 2006 World Cup as part of the national team, ten Italian championships as part of Juventus and the French championship as part of PSG, the legendary goalkeeper could not win the Champions League, but retired from football as a player from Parma, the club with which he In 1999, in the Moscow final against the French “Olympic”, he won the Cup of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).

“That’s all, friends! You gave me everything. I gave you everything. We did it together,” 45-year-old Gianluigi Buffon wrote on the X (ex-Twitter) network, saying goodbye to big football.

The Italian has lived a long and successful life in football, but the peak of his career is certainly became World Cup 2006 in Germany.

Then “Scuadra Azzurra”, showing not the most spectacular game, won gold medals, conceding only two goals in seven matches. One of them, due to a misunderstanding, scored in his own net defender Christian Zaccardo in the second meeting of the group stage against the Americans, and the second was on the account of the famous Frenchman Zinedine Zidane, who managed to accurately complete the penalty at the very beginning of the final. True, the French team, which was considered the favorite of that final, did not help. Already without Zidane, removed for a skirmish with Marco Materazzi, she lost a penalty shootout in which the main character was the goalkeeper of the rivals.

By that time, Buffon had long played for Juventus, the main team in his career. He moved there in 2001 from Parma, in which in 1999 he defended to zero the UEFA Cup final against the French Olimpik, held at Luzhniki and ended in a 3-0 victory for the Italian club. As part of Juventus, Buffon became a ten-time Italian champion from 2002 to 2020 and won the country’s cup five times. He remained loyal to the club during that difficult period, when Turintsy were sent from Serie A to Serie B for corruption violations – the second Italian division, from which they returned in the spring of 2007.

Buffon’s “dry” series in the Italian championships, which lasted 974 minutes in 2016, became a record. He played 657 matches in Serie A, which was also not possible for anyone, and collected many personal prizes – he was recognized as the best goalkeeper according to the International Football Federation (FIFA) in 2017 and the strongest goalkeeper of the 21st century – according to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics ( MFFIIS), was named the best goalkeeper in Italy 12 times.

In fact, the only title that Buffon lacked was the Champions League title, in the final of which his Juventus lost to Barcelona in 2015, and in 2017 to Real Madrid.

It’s for him that he’s a one-season veteran. got over at PSG. However, disappointment awaited him in Paris. Having become the champion of France, he never managed to realize his unfulfilled football dream and a year later he returned to Juventus, where he became an understudy for Pole Wojciech Szczesny. And from there, two seasons later, he moved to Parma, where he started.

“Today the legend hung up her gloves on a nail,” wrote on your site Juventus. Your saves, smiles and personality will be remembered forever. Parma President Kyle Krause, noting the human and professional qualities of Buffon, stressed that he can consider this club his home. And Marcello Lippi, who coached the Italian national team in 2006, noted that a person with such vast experience should definitely be involved in working with the national team.

Evgeny Fedyakov