Gianluigi Buffon

Gianluigi Buffon,(born 28 January 1978) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Serie A club Juventus. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. Buffon holds the record for the longest streak without conceding a goal in Serie A history of over 12 league matches; he went unbeaten for 974 consecutive minutes during the 2015–16 season, achieving the most consecutive clean sheets (10) during that run. Buffon also holds the record for the most clean sheets and most appearances in Serie A, and with the Italy national team. He is one of the few recorded players to have made over 1,000 professional career appearances.

At club level, Buffon's professional career began with Parma in 1995, where he made his Serie A debut. He soon broke into the starting line-up and earned a reputation as one of the most promising young goalkeepers in Italy, helping Parma to win the Coppa Italia, the UEFA Cup, and the Supercoppa Italiana, in 1999. After joining Juventus in 2001, for the world record fee for a goalkeeper of 52 million at the time, Buffon won Serie A titles in both of his first two seasons at the club, and established himself as one of the best players in the world in his position. With Juventus, he won a record ten Serie A titles, four Coppa Italia titles, and five Supercoppa Italiana titles. He is the first goalkeeper to win Serie A Footballer of the Year award. He was named Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year a record 12 times. After reaching the 2015 and 2017 Champions League finals, he was named to the Champions League Squad of the Season on both occasions, and won the inaugural The Best FIFA Goalkeeper award in the latter year. After 17 years with Juventus, Buffon signed with French club Paris Saint-Germain at the age of 40 in 2018, where he was used in a rotational role with Alphonse Areola; he won the Trophée des Champions and the Ligue 1 title in his only season with the team, before returning to Juventus the following year. During the 2019–20 season, he served primarily as a back-up to Wojciech Szczesny, but he broke Paolo Maldini's record of 647 appearances in Serie A and won his record tenth Serie A title.

With 176 international caps, Buffon is the most capped player in the history of the Italy national team, the seventh-most capped footballer of all time (joint with Hossam Hassan), and the second-most capped European international player ever; Buffon also holds the record for most appearances for Italy as captain after he inherited the armband in 2010.