Buffon at the Sport Festival: “Have you ever won a Champions League? Who cares?”

by our correspondent Valerio Piccioni

September 22
– Trento

He is a Gigi Buffon with an open heart. That he wants to talk about himself as to continue to parry and live on the field. The starting point is called Roger Federer, one who has stretched a lot and who now says enough, surrounded by the affection of half the world. “There are sports icons who stop our lives for a moment when they say enough. Some people should be given the elixir of life, it’s a shame to see them stop”.

Happy

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Federer has stopped, Buffon instead goes straight: “I continued to play for many reasons, I still feel strong and competitive and those who feel like this must not stop, I don’t want to go to the mall. But there is another reason: I am living my golden age “. The audience of the Trento Festival is captivated by the words of the blue goalkeeper. What does the golden age mean? “It means that I can do everything. If I stop I’m happy, but I can continue as long as I want, I have appropriated my own dimension, there is no ambition to win, I am a happy man seeing the fan who wants me in goal and Serie A asks me, it’s something gratifying. But to tell you one about not having won the Champions League, I don’t care. I was happy to have fought, to win it, I know how important it is for the fans, the club, my teammates. But I don’t need to win one or 8 Champions to know what I’m worth, the truth is that I have appropriated my freedom. “

Chiello

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Buffon sees Claudio Marchisio in the audience and greets him. “He is one of the teammates who led me to the unbeaten record”. Then he returns to today and to Parma: “I still have a lot of fun being at 44 with the boys, I feel like one of them, normality is my transgression. Who do I miss? team is sharing, the block of Italians who grew up together was formidable in terms of professionalism, one was the strength of the other “. Giorgio Chiellini’s message arrives: “Gigi was an older brother, I learned a lot from him. He knew how to come up with words from the heart that gave you so much energy”. He returns to Trento: but Buffon would feel like talking to this Juve as he has done so many times? “Every word risks having a polemical meaning. Juve’s DNA always has the ability to compact and react, but if a club gives you the imprinting, it is also the individual who must know how to translate it on the pitch.”

Maignan

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Gigi talks about everything. Also from Maignan. “When Milan took him I said to Paolo: I can confirm that you have taken on a great goalkeeper. Handanovic? Victory helps you, if you are in a winning context you can hide even some small errors.” But what will Buffon do at 58? “I played five World Cups – jokes the former Juventus player -. At 58 I could make the sixth or seventh”. And just to illustrate the concept, he throws himself on the floor of the stage mimicking a parade. “I thought I saw a balloon …”.