Gianluigi Buffon: the goalkeeper who said goodbye twice

Some goalkeepers are remembered for a save. Gianluigi Buffon is remembered for an era. He played his first Serie A game in 1995 and was still pulling on gloves in 2023. In between, he won the World Cup, dominated Italian football with Juventus, lost three Champions League finals and said goodbye more than once before the goodbye finally stuck.

His story begins and ends at the same club, in a small city in Emilia-Romagna, with two decades in black and white and one season in Paris in the middle.

The numbers

A seventeen-year-old against Milan

Buffon made his Serie A debut for Parma on 19 November 1995, at 17, against an AC Milan side with Roberto Baggio and George Weah up front. Milan left without a goal, held at bay largely by two saves from Baggio and Weah. A career that would run for 28 years had started with a clean sheet.

"He played like a 30-year-old when he was 17."

— Gianfranco Zola, on the teenage Buffon, quoted by Goal

In 1998–99 he won the UEFA Cup and the Coppa Italia in the same season, and the Supercoppa Italiana followed in 1999. By 2001 the rest of the continent was watching, and Juventus paid what was then a world-record fee for a goalkeeper, around €52.9 million, to take him to Turin.

Juventus: the keeper who stayed when they went down

The investment paid back at once. Juventus won Serie A in each of his first two seasons, 2001–02 and 2002–03. Then came the part of his story that did more for his legend than any trophy. When Juventus were relegated to Serie B after the 2006 match-fixing scandal, several teammates left. Buffon, the newly crowned world champion, stayed, played the season in the second tier and went up with the club.

What followed was the most dominant run in the history of Italian football. Serie A titles came in seven consecutive seasons from 2011–12 to 2017–18, and the Coppa Italia in four straight from 2014–15. Buffon spent that stretch as captain and, at an age when most goalkeepers have been retired for years, was setting records rather than chasing them.

2006: the summer the goal was locked

Buffon was part of five World Cup squads, but 2006 in Germany was his. He kept five clean sheets in seven games and conceded only twice in the entire tournament. One was an own goal by Cristian Zaccardo in the group-stage draw with the United States. The other was Zinedine Zidane's penalty in the seventh minute of the final. Nothing from open play beat him, and the tournament's Golden Glove went to him.

The save in Berlin

The final, on 9 July 2006, ended 1–1 after extra time and Italy won the shoot-out 5–3. But the match turned on a moment in extra time, when Willy Sagnol's cross found Zidane's head and the header looked destined for the net. Buffon tipped it over the crossbar. He later described that save as the most important of his career, and it is hard to argue with him.

The honours followed the trophy: runner-up behind Fabio Cannavaro for the Ballon d'Or in a World Cup year, only the second goalkeeper to finish that high since Dino Zoff in 1973, plus the Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper in the world.

Three finals, no trophy

The one cabinet space that stayed empty was the biggest. Buffon reached three Champions League finals and lost all three, a tally that ties him with Paolo Montero for the most lost finals without ever lifting the trophy.

Two of the three came against Spanish giants. Barcelona beat his Juventus in Berlin in 2015. Two years later Real Madrid, the defending champions, did it again in Cardiff.

The night in Madrid

Real Madrid had one more chapter to write against him. In the 2018 quarter-final, Juventus lost the first leg 3–0 at home, then went to the Bernabéu and led 3–0 themselves, level on aggregate, until a stoppage-time penalty for Real Madrid ended it. Buffon, sent off for his protests to referee Michael Oliver, left the pitch to a standing ovation from the home fans.

"Instead of a heart, he probably has a trash bin."

— Buffon on referee Michael Oliver after the 2018 quarter-final, as reported by Yahoo Sports

For many, it remains the defining image of a competition he never quite won.

Italy: the most capped, and the tears of 2017

Buffon made his Italy debut on 29 October 1997, in a World Cup qualifier in Moscow against Russia, and was a fixture of the squad for twenty years. He remains the most capped player in Italy's history, and he was a World Cup squad member in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014.

The end of the Italy chapter was not the one he wanted. A goalless draw with Sweden in Milan in November 2017 meant Italy missed a World Cup for the first time in six decades, and Buffon, then 39, announced his international retirement in tears.

"It is upsetting that my last match decided we didn't qualify for the World Cup."

— Buffon after the 2017 play-off defeat to Sweden, as reported by Fox Sports

He did play for Italy one more time, in a March 2018 friendly against Argentina that Italy lost 2–0, which became his 176th and final cap. A farewell against the Netherlands in June was expected, but he insisted he had already played his last match for his country and did not need a swansong.

Records

The farewell that was not the end

On 19 May 2018, Juventus hosted already-relegated Hellas Verona at the Allianz Stadium in the final round of the season. Buffon led the team out with his three sons by his side. Daniele Rugani and Miralem Pjanić scored within three minutes of each other early in the second half, and Juventus finished 2–1 winners. Just after the hour, Carlo Pinsoglio replaced Buffon, who walked off in tears, hugging team-mates, opponents and staff, and then went round the stadium greeting the supporters.

It looked like the end of a career that had already stretched well beyond anyone's expectations. It was only the end of the Juventus chapter. Buffon joined Paris Saint-Germain that summer, won Ligue 1 and the Trophée des Champions in his one season there, and then returned to Turin in 2019, this time as a back-up to Wojciech Szczęsny. He refused both the captain's armband and the No. 1 shirt on his return, and went on to win another Serie A title and the 2020–21 Coppa Italia.

In June 2021, at 43, he went home to Parma, who had dropped into Serie B, and played two more seasons for the club that had given him his debut.

The real goodbye

His last game was on 30 May 2023, against Cagliari. Nobody marked it as his last, and Buffon himself did not announce his retirement until 2 August, when he ended his contract with Parma, which still had a year to run. His message was typically brief.

"That's all folks! You gave me everything. I gave you everything. We did it together."

— Buffon announcing his retirement, 2 August 2023, as reported by ESPN

Parma's own statement counted it from the first game to the last, 19 November 1995 to 30 May 2023, and recorded 265 appearances in the club's colours. Its president promised that the club would always be his home. A career that had opened with a clean sheet against Milan closed in the same city, with the same club.

He has said that, whatever the offers, he does not do farewell matches: once a chapter closes, he says, he needs to move on to what comes next. What came next was a job at the federation, as head of Italy's delegation, a role Gianluca Vialli had held before him.

Why they call him an idol

The tributes after his retirement said more than the statistics. Juventus wrote that he had given the position a face and became the goalkeeper to beat and aspire to be. Leonardo Bonucci, who played in front of him for years, was blunter.

"You were unique. And you always will be."

— Leonardo Bonucci on Buffon's retirement, as reported by Football Italia

Part of it is consistency, the sheer length of a career that crossed four decades of Champions League football. Part of it is the choices: staying at Juventus in Serie B, leaving it for Paris at 40, coming back as a substitute. And part of it is the way he spoke about the job. His own definition of a goalkeeper's most important quality was the sense of certainty he gives to the players in front of him.

The Champions League trophy never came. The World Cup did.