Despite being 43, Gianluigi Buffon is still going strong, and Parma might not be his final stop: “I would like to play in Mexico or in the United States. Maybe I will have a year for a different experience after bringing my team back to Serie A.”
The goalkeeper had a chat with Hristo Stoichkov on the Mexican TV channel TUDN: “I will be the same after retiring. I love life, and I am a positive person. I do not know what I will do. Certainly, I would like to keep improving. I will probably learn English and take managerial classes.”
Buffon looked back at his final years at Juventus: “They had the best shot at winning the Champions League in the first Cristiano Ronaldo season when I was in Paris. I do not know what happened. When I came back, we worked well with him, but I think we lost our DNA as a team. We relied more on the quality of individual players since we had an extraordinary one. That may have had a lasting effect since he is no longer there, and they have to go back to leaning on the collective strength. We reached the final in 2017 because we had a strong and united group, but maybe we lacked a difference-maker.”
The big-eared cup always eluded him: “The fact that I did not win the Champions League keeps my competitive spirit alive. I would have probably already hanged my gloves if it happened.”
Buffon weighed in on his potential heirs: “There are five or six great goalkeepers, like Jan Oblak, Thibaut Courtois, Manuel Neuer, Marc-André ter Stegen, and Gianluigi Donnarumma. I do not think anybody separates himself from the pack at the moment. Donnarumma could potentially do it in the next couple of years.”