The big interview: Gianluigi Buffon – "Goalkeepers are perverse – you’re playing a game where everyone uses their feet, but you want to use your hands"

The legendary goalkeeper has announced that he will leave Juventus this summer after an incredible 17-year association with the Turin giants.

With over 1,000 games to his name for club and country – not to mention nine league titles, five domestic trophies, UEFA Cup and a World Cup – Buffon will go down as one of the game's undisputed all-time greats.

Yeah, it’s true. I guess every kid starts off playing football wanting to score goals rather than keep them out. Was I a striker as well? Yes, for a while. I was OK at it; I enjoyed it. I ended up in goal by chance, really. My dad pushed me towards it a bit, but then I also really wanted to be like Thomas N’Kono, the Cameroon goalkeeper. I was a bit reluctant at first, but the [1990] World Cup was on and I’d watch that great Cameroon side. N’Kono was such an important member of the team.

It was a big satisfaction for me. I really didn’t have any problems with it at all. In that sort of transfer market, I was seen as... we could say a phenomenon of sorts, but that was down to the price tag more than anything else. Juventus went to see me play, thought “f***, this Buffon really is a phenomenon” and paid a lot of money for me. If they had paid five million rather than 45 then it wouldn’t have made such a big splash. But the market determines the price. A good goalkeeper is vital for a good team, just as valuable as a good striker. And sometimes just as expensive. Would I have signed for Juve for five million? Yeah, I would. I’m not sure Parma would have been too happy, though...

Who knew about it? I knew about it. And I had to keep it to myself because, at the beginning at least, I didn’t really have the opportunities to be open about it; I didn’t know if I could talk about it to anyone. But then, very gradually, I would chat about it to friends, to team-mates, people really close to me, and I began to understand I had a problem and that it was something that could be dealt with and cured.

I didn’t take a break because I felt this great responsibility to my team-mates and to people who relied on me; I didn’t want to let them down. And I didn’t feel like I could stop playing: I didn’t think that would be seen as an acceptable way of doing things, not with that responsibility. I had a European Championship to play in. [FFT: Has that attitude within the game changed towards depression?] I think so. I hope so. It helped to see a psychologist, but as I said, the support of friends and team-mates was a big thing for me.

On a professional level, as a player, to have all that success taken away from you like that was devastating, yes. It deprived me of future successes and it deprived me of two successes from the past. We certainly arrived at the World Cup in Germany as the centre of attention and with the conviction that – in what was a delicate moment – we had to do something big on the pitch to respond to everything that had been going on. We were in determined mood, but then I never really thought we were going to win the tournament, so I’m not sure if it [Calciopoli] had much to do with it.

Of course it was easy, because they threw a load of money at me! No, no, I’m just kidding, of course! It was the opposite... no, playing in Serie B wasn’t a logical choice, but it was one of those made by the heart. Other players in the squad made other choices. That was up to them. The choices you make in life can be tough, they might not make your life any easier, but they make you the person that you are. Serie B was certainly an experience, but I have mixed feelings about it. To say I enjoyed it wouldn’t be the right word, but yes, that season was an experience...

Is Antonio Conte more impressive as a team-mate or as manager? Was it weird to be managed by someone who you’d played with for so long?
David Robinson, Bromley
As a team-mate, Conte was an excellent player, a very charismatic player – someone who was always a great example out on the pitch for others to follow. And now he’s a coach, I think he’s very good. Was it a bit strange? No, no, not at all. He always had that thing about him, way before he ever became a coach. He always had a certain stature about him.

He’s a coach who really likes to transmit his energy to the players. If he’s angry about something that has happened on the pitch then he lets you know, yes. Capello was worse? No... Conte, maybe because he’s a younger man, a younger coach, lives the whole 90 minutes – he really puts all his energy into it. A coach like Capello, with all that experience, can sometimes be a little more distant.

No, no, I wasn’t relaxed against the English. And I’m never relaxed when the game goes to penalties. Look: you go to penalties, you’ve got a 50 per cent chance of winning, but a 50 per cent chance of losing. But the thing with me is, I’m one of those handful of goalkeepers who are always expected to save at least one or two of those penalties. And if I don’t do that, I’m going to be judged really harshly by the press. So no, I can’t relax before penalties.

Yes, but these things shouldn’t just be a question of money or whatever. If you play for a big club, you’re obliged to win – you have to do it. So I suppose it’s normal that the idea of playing football for enjoyment, to please the crowds, becomes less and less important. But if you go out onto the pitch and the only objective is to beat your opponent, then it’s not really about enjoying yourself.

Maybe up until you’re 28, 29, 30, it’s about your physicality, your agility, but after that things change a little and your experience as a keeper begins to kick in. You know how to approach the important games, the sort of thing you only know from experience. And to have that kind of experience, I think you need to be over 30. But there’s a pay-off to that, because you can’t do the same things you could do as a young man. So I don’t know if we can really say there is a peak age, as the two ages can be just as important for different reasons. Good goalkeepers improve all the time, though. Yes, 150 caps would be a great achievement. Let’s see.

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Matt Barker is a freelance journalist and regular feature contributor to FourFourTwo magazine. He specialises in Serie A and Italian football, has interviewed players including Michael Owen and Gianluigi Buffon, as well as covering stories such as Silvio Berlusconi's purchase of AC Milan, and Ronaldo's injury-plagued time at Inter Milan at the turn of the century.

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