“It ends here. You have given me everything. I gave you my all. We won together”.
With this brief post on Instagram in the first week of August, 45-year-old Gianluigi Buffon, a living legend of Italian football, finally announced the end of his playing career after almost 30 years. Writing in La Repubblica, veteran critic Maurizio Crosetti suggested that Buffon managed to avoid the only real “terror” of his football career. Namely, as the player himself put it: “That one day others would have to tell me to give up, rather [than making] this decision myself”.
Appropriately enough, Buffon’s stellar career ended where it had all begun, at Parma. It was back in November1995 that the then-17-year-old reserve goalkeeper at the Stadio Ennio Tardini burst unexpectedly into the limelight, making his professional debut in a 0-0 home draw with the mighty Milan.
Coached by Fabio Capello and on the day starring players such
