The upcoming season in world football will be poorer for numerous icons of the most beautiful game - there will be no more bravura goals by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whirlwind breakthroughs by Gareth Bale, firmness by Marek Hamsik...
However, all those departures, expected and in accordance with the ticking biological clock, do not mean the same as Gianluigi Buffon's farewell. The end of the legendary goalkeeper's football career also marked the end of an entire football era.
The fantastic goalkeeper, whom even the proverbially critical Ibrahimović included in his ideal 11, said goodbye at the age of 45. And he didn't have to - Buffon had an offer on the table in Saudi Arabia to defend for as much as 15 million euros a year.
Money, however, was never the driving force behind one of the best goalkeepers of all time. After all, he proved it exactly 17 years ago when he remained loyal to Juventus and did not, like many other stars, leave the big ship that sank to a lower rank after the "calcopoli" affair.
- I was happy to stay at Juventus after the relegation. It gave people hope that there is something more important in life than money and popularity. I would do it again - said Buffon 12 years later in an interview with Gerard Pique, the icon of Barcelona who also said goodbye to playing this year.
- We had a fun season and returned to Serie A. But, after a couple of good championships in second and third place, a two-year crisis followed when Juve was unrecognizable. We have lost our spirit, our individuality. After finishing seventh twice in a row, I asked myself, 'What do I need this for?' But I'm an optimist by nature and six years after relegation we won the Scudetto again - the great goalkeeper explained his attitude to life.
His popularity could never be questioned, even if he helped his hometown club Carrareza with 600 thousand euros, to whose matches he went hiding in the toilet of the trains as the third man in Parma. Or when the world was amazed by the way and words with which he said goodbye to the late Davide Astori, who was a legend of Fiorentina, the bitterest enemy of his Juventus.
And he didn't lack trophies, not even the biggest awards, all except - the Champions League, which he never won. After losing in the final in 2015, he even fell into depression, but...
"In the museum, I polished the painting 'The Walk' by Marc Chagall. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. It's like a child's drawing: he stands smiling holding her hand as she flies into the sky like an angel. That picture brought back to me a child's sense of the simplicity of happiness," Buffon explained the way out of the crisis.
Buffon lost two more Champions League finals, but I was comforted by the words of Dani Alves after Barcelona's victory: "I would give all these trophies for your Great Goddess."
And Buffon was not only the world champion with Italy in 2006, but at the World Cup in Germany he was recognized as the best goalkeeper of the World Cup. In 2010, Buffon became the captain of the Italian national team, from which he retired in 2018. He participated in as many as five World Cups (1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014).
Apart from the Champions League trophy, Buffon's desire to return Parma to Serie A, the club with which he won three trophies in 1999 - the Italian Cup and Super Cup, and the Uefa Cup, did not come true, but he missed the recent play-off semi-final with Cagliari and saw off the goalless match in tears. rematch at "Tardini" on May 4. Cagliari won the first match 3:2. That's when the "eternal boy" decided to say - enough!
Buffon started his senior career in 1995 in Parma, on November 19 against Milan (0:0) and defended the goal of the "milkman" until 2001. Then for Juventus until 2018, and then returned to the club in 2019 after a season at PSŽ - in. And in 2005, in the Champions League match with Real Madrid, Buffon made a spectacular save after a recognizable free kick by Roberto Carlos - then the ball flew at a speed of 140 km/h, but Buffon deflected it with one hand.
In February 2020, after defending Daniele Maldini's goal in the semi-final of the Coppa Italia, Buffon added to the collection of jerseys of the sons of the players with whom he exchanged them in his youth - Paolo and Daniele Maldini, Enrico and Federico Chiesa, Georges and Timothy Vea... Generations changed - Buffon remained. After the departure of Francesco Totti, only Gidgi was the link between modern Italian football and the "romantic" 90s, when Italian clubs were so strong that they won 13 European Cups.
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