Gianluigi Buffon has announced the conclusion of his career as a footballer. The news had been awaited for days and Buffon communicated it on Wednesday afternoon via his social profiles, with a video and a short message: «It ends here. You gave me everything. I gave you everything. We won together.”
That’s all folks!
You gave me everything.
I gave you everything.
We did it together. pic.twitter.com/bGvIDsoFsG— Gianluigi Buffon (@gianluigibuffon) August 2, 2023
After being a goalkeeper for Juventus and the Italian national team for a long time, in the last two seasons he returned to Parma, the team with which he made his professional debut in the 1990s, winning the first trophies of his long career: the UEFA Cup and the Italian Cup of 1999. At the age of 45 he was the last player still active for the national team who won the World Championships in Germany in 2006.
Considered one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of professional football, Buffon holds a number of rather significant records that are unlikely to be broken in the short term. He is the player who has won the most Scudetti (10), with the most appearances in the history of Serie A (657, ten more than Paolo Maldini) as well as the goalkeeper with the longest series of games finished without conceding a goal (974 minutes, just more than ten games).
He continues to be the player with the most appearances and wins in the history of Juventus, with 19 titles obtained between 2001 and 2018 and then between 2019 and 2021, after the season spent in France at Paris Saint-Germain. He has never managed to win the Champions League, the most coveted tournament in European football, and apart from the World Cup won with Italy, the major international awards have been obtained individually.
In 2003, the year he played in the first of the three Champions League finals he lost to Juventus, he was voted best goalkeeper in Europe. Over the next fifteen years he was elected five times best goalkeeper in the world and then goalkeeper of the decade 2000-2010 by IFFHS, the International Institute of Football History and Statistics. In 2006 he was the second most voted player for the Ballon d’Or, the highest individual award in professional football: among goalkeepers only Lev Jašin did better, winning it in 1963.
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