The PSG version QSI has increased flashy recruitments for years, and this was the case for all positions, notably that of goalkeeper. In 2018, one of the greatest goalkeepers in history signed up for a season with the Parisian club, and he gave the behind-the-scenes account of his signing for PSG at that time.
The facts date back to the summer of 2018, whenFrench team had just won the second World Cup in its history and the PSG was looking for a new competitor to Alphonse Areola as goalkeeper after the departure of Kevin Trapp. The leaders of the Ile-de-France club used their important network to recruit a true historical legend for this position, the Italian Gianluigi Buffon who had just left the Juventus Turinand who signed a one-season contract with PSG.
Buffon and his signing at PSG
Questioned in December 2020 in the columns of THE TEAM, Buffon returned to the hectic backstage of his arrival at PSG two years ago: Around March, my agent comes to Turin and we talk. He asks if I really want to stop. I told him yes and, jokingly, I added: “Well, if Real Madrid, PSG or Barça call you, you tell me.” It was a joke. Because I’m not questioning my level, but a club like that doesn’t usually take a 40-year-old player. Three weeks later, he called me: “Gigi, would you go to PSG?” I replied: “Let me think for three or four days, I have to see with my family, the children, how to organize myself, what they think.” And I wanted to talk to the president, too. I told my children about it, they were overjoyed. “Wow, you’re going to Paris, there’s Mbappé, Neymar, Verratti, Marquinhos!” I thought they would be a hindrance and on the contrary they are pushing me to do it », confides Buffon.
“I chose to come”
Finally, while the track leading to PSG came to fruition through its agents, Gianluigi Buffon ended up responding favorably: “ I thought a little: I wasn’t going to Italy, and therefore it didn’t interfere with my past with Juve. I spoke to the president about it, I explained it to him. And I chose to come », continues the Italian legend, who will have worn the colors of PSG during a season.
