Gianluigi Buffon is now 45 years old, is living the twilight of his gigantic career in his training club Parma in the Italian second division and looks back on his years at the highest level. In an interview with Bobo TV, the YouTube channel of his former national team partner Christian Vieri, the goalkeeper looks back on his season spent at PSG in 2018-2019. Only one year in France, but particularly appreciated by the 2006 world champion.
“My experience in Paris was the best of my life,” he says. The greatest experience of my life was PSG. I felt at the center of the world after two months, I spoke French, I talked to people in the street. I must say that my departure was probably the biggest mistake of my career. »
But then, why did he choose to return to Juventus Turin in 2019? “They (Editor’s note: the Parisian leaders) told me: Gigi, we are very happy, but you will not start as a starter in the Champions League. Areola will play. I stopped and said to myself that it was not fair, he describes. It was a matter of respect. How can you be told in March that you won’t be playing the following year? What is this game? It’s not sports. »
“We ruined everything”
A competition with the French doorman who eventually bored him. Buffon left with this bitterness, but above all with the feeling of a failed European campaign. That season, Thomas Tuchel’s PSG was knocked out by Manchester United in the knockout stages of the Champions League (0-2, 1-3) after a completely missed return match at the Parc des Princes where he had was at fault on a goal.
“The level of football I saw at PSG, I will never see it again in my life,” he recalls. We had the feeling of playing the Champions League and telling ourselves that we were going to win it that year because we were stronger than the others. I told my wife, my agent. We ruined everything. They came to play in Paris with children. There were De Gea, Lukaku and Rashford but the others were young. We screwed up, mentally. This is probably the biggest regret of my career. We were very strong, a mega team. »