Gianluigi "Gigi" Buffon
Born 28 January 1978 is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for and captains Serie A club Juventus. He also captained the Italy national team until his retirement yesterday where unfortunately he ended his carreer on a defeat…
He is widely regarded by players, pundits and managers to be one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time and by some to be the greatest ever. Buffon is known for his "outstanding shot-stopping" and for being "a vocal organizer of the defence and a key dressing room personality". He is currently the most expensive goalkeeper in history, following his €52 million transfer from Parma to Juventus in 2001, as well as being the most expensive Italian player.
Buffon holds the record for the most clean sheets in Serie A, and with the Italy national team; he also holds the record for the longest streak without conceding a goal in Serie A history: over 12 league matches, he went unbeaten for 974 consecutive minutes during the 2015–16 season, as well as having achieved the most consecutive clean sheets (10) in Serie A in that same season. He is one of only eighteen players to have made at least 1,000 professional career appearances.
At club level, Buffon's professional career began with Parma in 1995, where he made his Serie A debut, and was soon promoted to the role of starting goalkeeper, earning a reputation as one of the most promising young goalkeepers in Italy; during his time with the club, he won the Coppa Italia, the UEFA Cup and the Supercoppa Italiana, all in 1999.
After joining Juventus in 2001, Buffon immediately won Serie A titles in both of his first two seasons at the club, and established himself as one of the best players in the world in his position. After winning two more consecutive league titles in 2005 and 2006, the club were later stripped of these titles and relegated due to their involvement in the 2006 Italian football scandal. Despite rumours of his departure, Buffon remained with Juventus, contributing to the club's Serie B title and promotion back to Serie A in 2007.
Following several trophyless seasons, Buffon later played a key role in Juventus' resurgence, which saw the club win an Italian record of six consecutive league titles between 2011 and 2017; he also inherited the captain's armband following the departure of Alessandro Del Piero in 2012. In total, he has won a record eight Serie A titles, as well as three Coppa Italia titles, and five Supercoppa Italiana titles with Juventus.
With 175 international caps, Buffon is also the most capped player in the history of the Italian national team, the fourth-most capped male international footballer of all time, and the most capped European international player ever; alongside Fabio Cannavaro, Buffon also holds the record most appearances for Italy as captain (79).
With the Italy national team, Buffon has been called up for an international record of five FIFA World Cup tournaments (1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014) since making his debut in 1997, featuring in four of them as Italy's starting goalkeeper (he was an unused substitute in 1998). He was the starting goalkeeper of the Italian team that won the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which saw him keep a record five clean sheets, and concede only two goals, neither of which were in open play. He has also represented Italy at four European Championships, at the 1996 Olympics, and at two FIFA Confederations Cups, winning a bronze medal in the 2013 edition of the tournament. He retired from international football in 2017.
Buffon has also won numerous, prestigious individual and team awards. He was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players in 2004. He has been named the Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year a record eleven times. Buffon was the winner of the 2006 Yashin Award following Italy's World Cup victory, in which he was also elected to be part of the Team of the Tournament; an honour which he also received after reaching the quarter-finals of the 2008 European Championships, and the final of the 2012 European Championships. Buffon is the only goalkeeper to have won the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year Award, which he won in 2003 after reaching the Champions League final; he also won the award for best Goalkeeper that year, and was voted into the UEFA Team of the Year in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2016. In 2006, Buffon was runner-up for the Ballon d'Or and was elected to be part of the FIFPro World XI, an honour which he also achieved in 2007 and in 2017.
After reaching the 2015 and 2017 Champions League finals, he was named to the Champions League Squad of the Season on both occasions, and also placed fourth, sixth and third respectively in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions of the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. He has been named the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper four times (second, alongside Manuel Neuer, only to Iker Casillas, with five awards) and was also named the best goalkeeper of the 21st century, of the past 25 years, and of the decade, by the same organisation. In 2016, he became the first goalkeeper ever to win the Golden Foot Award, which pertains to both personality and playing ability.
In 2017, he won The Best FIFA Goalkeeper Award and placed fourth in The Best FIFA Men's Player Award. On the 13th of November 2017, Buffon retired from international football after Italy failed to qualify for the world cup. He finished as the most capped Italian football player of all time.
His life
Buffon was born into a family of Italian athletes on 28 January 1978. His mother, Maria Stella, was a discus thrower and his father, Adriano, was a weightlifter. Following their athletic retirement, they subsequently worked as P.E. school teachers. Buffon's two sisters, Veronica and Guendalina, played volleyball for the Italian national volleyball team, and his uncle, Dante Masocco, was a basketball player in Serie A1, who also represented the national team. In addition to this, former Inter, Milan and Italy goalkeeping legend Lorenzo Buffon is also a cousin of Gianluigi Buffon's grandfather. Buffon is Catholic.
Buffon married Czech model Alena Šeredová in June 2011, although they had been in a relationship together since 2005. They have two children, Louis Thomas (born in 2007 and named after Buffon's idol Thomas N'Kono) and David Lee (born in 2009). In May 2014, Buffon announced that he had separated from his wife after three years of marriage. He was soon romantically linked to Italian sports pundit, journalist and television host Ilaria D'Amico. In 2015, Buffon announced that the couple were expecting a child together. On 6 January 2016, the couple announced the birth of their son Leopoldo Mattia on Twitter earlier that evening. In the summer of 2017, the pair became engaged. Prior to his relationship and marriage to Šeredová, Buffon had also previously been engaged to a sprinter from the Italy national athletics team, Vincenza Calì.
In 2013, Buffon revealed he had suffered with bouts of depression during the 2003–04 season, following Juventus' penalty shoot-out defeat in the 2003 Champions League final, and due to Juventus's negative performance that season. Buffon regularly visited a psychologist, but refused to take medication, and overcame his depression prior to Euro 2004.