Saturday’s game against Hellas Verona will be Gianluigi Buffon’s last in a Juventus shirt. However, he is not retiring… well, not yet anyway.
Buffon will reveal his intentions next week, but he claims to have some exciting offers both on and off the pitch, the most interesting of which, he revealed on Thursday, comes from within and involves learning the ropes under Juventus president Andrea Agnelli.
All that is certain for now is Buffon has one last game to play at the Allianz Stadium.
“It will not be a goodbye alla Totti,” Buffon’s agent, the former goalkeeper Silvano Martina, said. “Celebrations like that are more in keeping with the passionate Roman style.”
Turin is different.
The backdrop of the Alps reminds you that temperatures and temperaments are cooler here, although it was hard not to be moved listening to Buffon and Agnelli at Thursday’s press conference. Living among nature’s giants helps man know his place in the order of things. It’s a question of perspective.
Saturday afternoon will definitely be a strappalacrime – a tearjerker – Martina confided. But if you’re expecting a Hollywood production, then prepare to be disappointed.
Buffon’s final bow in Juventus colours will be a “sober” affair without excess. For frame of reference, picture a chief executive packing up his desk at car maker Fiat after 17 years.
The scene calls to mind something Carlo Ancelotti said about the difference between working at AC Milan and Juventus. One’s a family. The other’s a company.
There is little room for sentiment. A brief moment.
What the heart wants seldom overrules the head as Buffon’s predecessor as Juventus captain Alessandro Del Piero found out.
Del Piero wished to finish his career beside the Old Lady. But in 2012, Juventus felt it was time to move on. Not yet ready to hang up his boots, their number 10 had to leave.
Buffon, however, gives the impression of being more accepting and understanding of the club’s plans. Yet the decision is still something he has agonised over. The vocina – or little voice – inside his head has been debating what to do all year and continues to chatter away.
What probably leaves Buffon conflicted about pulling off the gloves once and for all is the knowledge that, unlike Roma legend Francesco Totti, who retired last season, and Del Piero, he can still be effective at the highest level, even though he is 40.
It’s different for goalkeepers. Just look at Dino Zoff. He lifted the World Cup at 40. So it’s hard to walk away.
Buffon admitted as much on Wednesday when he told Gerard Pique, the Barcelona centre-back, that he is “a little afraid”.
But as the last great player of that Football Italia generation, Buffon is perhaps better for the experience of seeing what Paolo Maldini, Del Piero, Javier Zanetti and Totti went through.
He knows that fairytale endings are exactly that; the stuff of fairytales. Winning the Champions League and going to a record sixth World Cup was probably what Buffon dreamed about. But you can’t always get what you want.
While Buffon claims not to feel a day over 28 and can see himself playing into his 60s, he is self-aware enough to know what playing on looks like. At least in Italy.
“I don’t want to be a catenaccio,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this year. The word is an evocative one, associated with cast-iron Italian defences locking up the game and stopping others from scoring. A barrier to entry.
“I don’t want that,” he said. “A 40-year-old has to have a sense of responsibility.”
Getting in the way of another goalkeeper’s development is anathema to a player who burst on the scene as a 17-year-old in spectacular fashion, stopping Fabio Capello’s Milan and Ballon d’Or winners such as Roberto Baggio and George Weah.
Sourced By:- BBC Sports
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