Juventus and Italy international Gianluigi Buffon’s World Cup tournament seems to have ended prematurely. Often regarded as one of the world’s finest goal keeper’s, the 32 year old will now have to watch the remainder of his team’s matches from the sidelines after Azzurri team doctor Enrico Castellacci failed to set a recovery date for his sciastic nerve injury suffered during their opening Group game against Paraguay on Monday.
“At the moment we cannot hypothesise a recovery date, that will be based on objective clinical conditions,” Castellacci told the press.
“For now he will undergo a programme of physiotherapy.”
With a glittering career that begun with Parma back in 1991 when he was just 13 years old, Gigi, (as he is commonly referred to ) is today one of the game’s best and highly paid goalies. His outstanding career for both club and country led Pele to name him as one of the 125 greatest living players in the world.
We all know how good Buffon is however, what we might not know is just how costly his injury will be to the defending champions. Italy lacked the appeal and grit that we all know them for. There is no doubt that Buffon was the main reason why Italy won the cup 4 years ago.
Having conceded only one goal in the run up to the final, Gigi went one better with his amazing goal saving antics in the Final against France to ensure a 4th title for the Italians.
Missing a host of their stars and with other key players nursing injuries, it remains to be seen whether Marcelo Lippi can marshal lhis troops to a convincing win in their next group outing against Oceania side New Zealand.
Many might argue that Buffon is not as effective as he has been in the past few years, however, i am of a different school of thought. Just as with Ronaldinho, he might not be the same player we all came to love but, he definitely has the rare talent of producing saves that keep his team going.
Photo credit: from galeria_futbolera
