Buffon - The strikers’ bane

To truly be amazed by how great Buffon is as a goalkeeper, one has to watch his plays in more than 800 pro games and pay close attention to how tightly he guarded his goal.

Gianluigi Buffon’s greatness can be seen when one looks at statistics reports from the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics) in which he has been nominated Best goalkeeper for the years 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

The specialists in the IFFHS have analysed Buffon’s statistics so much I can’t tell if they are boring or interesting. In the years 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, this “Superman” claimed this federation’s title of “Best goalkeeper of the last 20 years,” four times.

They gave him the top spot when it comes to goal-keeping in the first decade of the 21st Century (2001-2011), and even went so far as to praise him as the best goalkeeper of the 21st Century, though the 21st Century will be lasting for many more decades.

Buffon has quite a personal collection of prizes, with 5 Scudettos with Juventus (excluding the two that got withdrawn in 2005 and 2006 in the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal, one of which was returned to Inter), as well as many other national prizes (with Juventus and Parma). In his youth, Buffon singlehandedly brought Parma to the UEFA Cup in the 1998-1999 season.

This legend reached the zenith of his career when he became the hero who secured Italia’s world championship in Berlin in 2006. That was also when fans around the world got the first chance to behold Buffon’s astounding personal skills. 

To truly be amazed by how great Buffon is as a goalkeeper, one has to watch his plays in more than 800 pro games and pay close attention to how tightly he guarded his goal with fast reflexes, timely moves, and cunning as well as confidence in face-to-face scenarios. This man has always been his teammates’ inspiration, and truly, it is hard to find another goalkeeper as skilled and talented as he. 

Gigi Buffon, with 139 matches in the Italian colour and only missing 114 goals, has claimed his rightful place as a World Cup icon. He was the best goalkeeper in the 2006 World Cup, where nobody could put a ball in his goal in non-penalty scenarios (except for, sadly, his teammate, Cristian Zaccardo, in a match versus the U.S. team).

Gigi has been to five World Cups with Italia. He was in France in 1998, and was picked by Coach Trapattoni four years later in Korea-Japan. Another four years saw him raise the champion’s cup in Berlin in 2006. In South Africa in 2010, he was heavily injured after just 45 minutes of Italia’s first match, and along with Azzurri, he was hurried back to Italia for his treatment. He would return to Brazil in 2014, but with little luck, and he had to watch as Italia fell before Uruguay’s might in the last match of the elimination phase. 

Up to now, there are but three people who have been in five World Cups: the German legend Lothar Matthaeus (1982-1998), Mexico’s Antonio Carabajal (1950-1966) and Gigi Buffon.

World Cup 2018 will see Buffon in his 40th year; it might even see him playing for Italy in his 6th World Cup if his health allows it. Dino Zoff, Juventus’s legend before Buffon’s time, kept Italia’s goal in the 1982 World Cup final when he was 40 years and 133 days old. Buffon might very well stand in front of Italia’s goal in Russia in 2018.

If that is the case, we will have much more to talk about regarding the legend of “Buffon the Superman.”