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When your name is Gianluigi Buffon, you have a lot to tell about his football career. Imagine instead, the former goalkeeper played his first matches when Diego Maradona had not yet retired (1995), and his last when Lamine Yamal was starting at Bar\u00e7a (2023). The Italian was an actor for almost three decades in the great history of football, and he decided to write a book about it, entitled Saved<\/span>released last week.<\/p>\n The goalkeeper trained in Parma, who spent a season with PSG in 2018-2019, looks back on the notable sequences of his story in an interview with Guardian<\/span> this Wednesday. It is in particular about an event that we will not soon forget in France: Zizou’s headbutt during the World Cup final won by Italy in 2006.<\/p>\n At the time when there was no VAR, Buffon’s role was preponderant. Because the game had started again on the other side, and no one was watching what was happening in the Italian camp when Marco Materazzi found himself on the ground. The rest is told by Gigi:<\/p>\n \u00ab <\/span>I was about fifteen meters away and heard the thud. If he had done this to anyone other than Materazzi, he would have knocked them out. The linesman saw nothing. I was the only witness. So I rushed towards the referee and his assistant to get their attention. Materazzi was on the ground, Zidane was motionless, I was protesting, and finally the match stopped. \u00bb<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The referee, Horacio Elizondo, then consulted his assistants and, perhaps, the television cameras that filmed the scene, even though he was not supposed to do so. And decided to expel Zidane. Buffon admits today that he was \u201cupset and torn by contradictory feelings\u201d at that moment.<\/p>\n\u201cContradictory feelings\u201d<\/h2>\n
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