“It is really really hard to find the terms,” Andrea Agnelli admitted. But the Juventus president did his ideal to describe the man sitting next to him, Gianluigi Buffon.

“Selfless. Charismatic. Bold. Timid. Loyal. Transparent. Honest. Sincere. A good friend and a captain.”

It was very clear to absolutely everyone in attendance at Thursday’s press conference that the bond between the two goes further than football. Buffon is godfather to Agnelli’s daughter and, outside of the president’s spouse and children, “no a person has been an additional recurrent visitor to my home.”

A 17-year profession in black and white is drawing to a close. Saturday’s game against Hellas Verona at the Allianz Stadium will be Buffon’s very last defending Juventus’ goal. Wojciech Szczesny will do well him as the Old Lady’s No.1 and Giorgio Chiellini will just take the captain’s armband.

When Buffon outlined that the Agnelli spouse and children had been included with Juventus for pretty much a century, his manager and good friend succeeded in acquiring a way of placing the goalkeeper’s individual place in heritage in standpoint.

Seventeen a long time is almost “20 p.c of that time,” Agnelli explained. “Thirty p.c of the trophies in our museum carry your title.”

Buffon hadn’t imagined about it like that. He smiled, with whatever disappointment the forty-year-old felt when the press conference began — his voice initially trembled when his change arrived to speak — obtaining subsided. You could tell Buffon was happy.

Very first, there was his individual journey, which Agnelli made out to be something Dante may well have composed: “He was in heaven, then in hell [right after Calciopoli, relegation and Serie B] but made it again to heaven once more.”

Then there was this season, Buffon’s very last, which brought a seventh successive Scudetto and a fourth consecutive league and cup double. The players who have been there for all of them — Buffon, Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli, Stephane Lichtsteiner and Claudio Marchisio — insist it was the “most difficult.”

“It was a season with sensational and sudden lows [like Italy failing to qualify for the World Cup and Juventus’ stoppage time elimination from the Champions League] and unbelievable highs,” Buffon explained.

For Juventus to maintain their nerve and win the title right after shedding to Napoli in Turin at the finish of very last thirty day period provoked enormous gratification in Buffon, especially when they appeared like throwing it absently against Inter the adhering to week.

What also arrived across was how much it mattered to Buffon to go out not only as a winner but as a “competitive animal.” He hardly ever needed to be a burden to Juventus. At forty, he thinks he has what it will take to play on at the highest level, which is why he isn’t retiring. At minimum not for now.

Buffon was certain about contacting it a working day until eventually about two weeks back, but something improved. Presents to keep playing are not in small provide the Italian papers are complete with noted desire from Boca Juniors, Sporting Lisbon, Liverpool and Borussia Monchengladbach, Buffon’s “German team.”

Disappointingly, for individuals of an intimate persuasion, Buffon downplayed a return to Parma as the stuff of kids’ desires. Continue to, you can imagine the ears of his previous club pricking up and Parma could perhaps do with their previous No. 1 as they get ready to make a closing drive for advertising to Serie A.

Agnelli sees Buffon’s extensive-time period future at Juventus, including that he can devote a year “finding out and learning to get a 360-degree knowing of the club. After that, we would see what the ideal purpose would be. Which is as true for Gigi as it is for any employee.” It brought to brain the profession route of Giampiero Boniperti who, obtaining performed additional than 450 times for the club, went on to provide as its president.

All we know for now is Buffon will make his conclusion next week and it can be up to him to make a decision the place his enthusiasm lies. Although he will not likely be playing for Italy once more, the FIGC are envisioned to seem him out for a purpose with the national team. In the meantime, he has expressed his want for the next few times to be as regular as achievable. He does not want a fuss. His agent, the previous goalkeeper Silvano Martina, insists Saturday afternoon will be an “additional sober” affair than Francesco Totti’s goodbye game for Roma a year back. His client would not have it any other way: “Even as a child I found birthdays a hassle mainly because I failed to like being the centre of focus,” Buffon explained.

But each individual camera will be properly trained on him at the weekend and this situation is confirmed to be emotional. The game will be a distraction, a secondary thought in what promises to be the most important strappalacrime — or tearjerker — at the Allianz Stadium because Alessandro Del Piero left in 2012.

Buffon has acknowledged what he needed to do at any time because, as a 12-year-old, he noticed Cameroon’s Thomas N’Kono punching a person Argentine assault absent right after the other in the opening game of Italia `90. Listening to him on Thursday brought to brain an anecdote from his early times.

Parma’s goalkeeping coach Ermes Fulgoni instructed Buffon, then sixteen, that he would be a starter in Serie A in just four a long time. Fulgoni imagined the boy would be pleased with these a present of assurance in his potential. “What am I going to do until eventually then?” Buffon replied.

Flash ahead to 2018 and the forty-year-old is asking the exact same concern. Although he figures that out, all that is left to say is: “Grazie Gigi.”