Ex-PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon regrets leaving Paris Saint-Germain. The 45-year-old goalkeeper returned to Juventus after a year because he didn’t feel like playing second fiddle to Alphonse Areola, but now calls it “probably the biggest mistake” of his career.
Buffon regrets leaving PSG: “The biggest mistake of my career”
Buffon exchanged Juventus in 2018 after seventeen years of loyal service for PSG, where he came to 25 official duels between base and bench. After his first season, Buffon was told by the club management that he could not count on a permanent starting place. “They said: ‘Gigi, we are very happy with you, but you will not be a starting player in the Champions League. Areola is going to play.’ I didn’t think that was right,” Buffon looked back on his departure from Paris on the YouTube channel of former top striker Christian Vieri.
“It was a matter of respect,” Buffon explained. “How can you tell someone in March that he will not play next season. What are those games? That doesn’t fit in top sport.” And so the living legend returned to Turin to act as Wojciech Szczesny’s stand-in. The Italian goalie would remain in that role for another two seasons before returning to his boyhood club Parma in Serie B in 2021, where he is now under the crossbar at the age of 45.
Gigi refers to Manchester United as a team full of kids
In retrospect, Buffon would have liked to have stayed longer in Paris. “I had the best time of my life at PSG. After two months I felt completely at home. I spoke French, talked to the people on the street. And if I had a day off, I would grab an Uber and go to a museum on my own. Regardless of my status as a professional football player at the highest level, I was a satisfied man, it was the best experience of my life. Even today my children ask me why we left Paris.”
Buffon also enjoyed playing football in Paris. “I will never see the level of football at PSG again in my life. We told each other that we would win the Champions League because we were stronger than the rest. But we ruined everything,” he refers to the elimination against Manchester United in the round of 16. “Apart from De Gea, Lukaku and Rashford, they came to Paris with a team full of kids. I probably regret that the most in my career, because we had a very strong team.”
