Happy Birthday Gianluigi Buffon!
35 years may have gone by, but he is always getting better and always willing to learn new things, that’s what makes him so great… his willingness and ability to see criticism or even a loss as an opportunity to get better. His humility has blessed him with top flight football, from the age of 15 at Parma to the mature age of 35, now he will always be regarded with tremendous respect, and why I hear you ask, it’s because he treats everyone with respect, he’s sincere, loyal, honest and constructive, all the qualities that would make him a pleasure to work with.
His tremendous sportsmanship has more recently been rewarded with the Cartellino Viola award after his team’s loss to AC Milan. Juventus lost in controversial circumstances but instead of shouting conspiracy, he just praised his opposition and accepted that they didn’t play as good as expected. This act just confirms what I’ve been saying for years… this is the classiest man in sport and also the most loved. He is loved in Italy for his continued professionalism on and off the pitch.
The Old Lady may have the privilege of working with him till 2015. Buffon has made clear that he had hoped for a short term contract, don’t get the wrong idea, he hopes to end his career at Juve but he wants to be remembered as the “top notch” keeper he is, and not only that, but he’s willing to take a pay cut- just goes to show you that his love of the game goes further than his love of money.
Gigi has been at Juventus since 2001 and has collected many accolades during that period, yet I believe that giving him the captains’ armband, officially recognising that he is captain ranks up near the top of his achievements. As a true captain he is not afraid to take responsibility of his troops, as he does in every match. But during the match against a 10 man Sampdoria he made an error that resulted in the first goal, and he owned up to that, and in the next match he was extra hard on himself and made sure he didn’t make the same mistake again. He continues to get better after any bump in the road and never lets it have a negative impact on the game.
He is the perfect role model for any young keeper, he’s got great reflexes, a great command of what’s going on in front of him and most importantly he doesn’t view every mistake as a negative, rather something he can learn from. It’s probably comes as no surprise that the young keeper Nicola Leali has aspirations of becoming “the next Buffon”. Leali has been loaned out by Juve, so that he can gain some valuable experience that can only come from playing time, and we all know that as long as Gigi is between the posts that will be rather difficult.
It is still hard to fathom that he has been ignored when it came to the Ballon D’or, yet again! The first time was after the triumphs of 2006 when Italy won the World Cup, that year fellow team mate Fabio Cannavaro got it for leading Italy to success, and he was again in the running for it in 2012 after the tremendous run Italy had in the Euro’s, but again he was ignored, and it looked like if you didn’t play in La Liga you were going to be overlooked!
Andrea Agnelli is still hoping, along with every other fan of Italian football, that the award finds its way back to Italy soon and that Buffon can become the second goalkeeper to receive it. If Gigi can help the Bianconeri win the Champions League within the next 2 years..There’s still hope!
So to wrap up, Buffon is loved and respected by his peers and looked up by aspiring keepers, but above all, he is, and always will be adored by the fans!
Buon Compleanno Gigi!
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