Gianluigi Buffon has no regrets about his ‘beautiful experience’ at Paris Saint-Germain and ‘feels sorry’ for those who criticise the club.
Buffon joined PSG from Juventus last summer and marked his debut campaign with a Ligue 1 title, although the French giants again failed to challenge for the Champions League.
“For me it’s been a beautiful experience…” the former Italy goalkeeper told the club’s official website.
Gianluigi Buffon has no regrets about his ‘beautiful experience’ at Paris Saint-Germain and ‘feels sorry’ for those who criticise the club.
Buffon joined PSG from Juventus last summer and marked his debut campaign with a Ligue 1 title, although the French giants again failed to challenge for the Champions League.
“For me it’s been a beautiful experience…” the former Italy goalkeeper told the club’s official website.
“I have spent nine months in a stupendous city, a city that welcomed me with affection and warmth…
“It has been a great pleasure and I am very happy to have made this choice to come here.
“I wanted another footballing experience and a life experience, that could be enriching for me, and I have to say, today, all the reasons for coming here, for making this choice, have been fulfilled, because I have always been curious to confront myself with different worlds.
“I have always been humble enough to try and learn from different experiences and this has been the case here in Paris.
“I have learnt quite good French which is something I know will help me in the future and make me a better person, more confident in myself. And this has been very important for me.
“Sometimes I feel sorry for people who work in football and don’t understand just how hard it is to always win.
“Even if you are the strongest team, winning takes a lot of mental and physical energy, to keep working well, to keep finding the right answers, to keep playing well, that not everyone is capable of, and it doesn’t do it justice to say: they won the League because they are the strongest!
“You win because, for sure, we are the strongest, but also because in each of us there is a professionalism and a pride that we give to the service of the team throughout the weeks of training and to win each and every game.”
The 41-year-old has played just 22 times for PSG this season, rotating with Alphonse Areola for the No 1 jersey.
“Yes, we can say this is the first time I’ve experienced this because at Juventus over the last two or three years, normally if I wasn’t injured, the other ‘keeper would only play 10 or 15 matches, and I think that was important because everyone needs to feel that they are an important part of the team…
“This year has definitely been something different, something I wasn’t used to, but something I happily accepted…
“I happily accepted it because I’m a person that loves being a part of the group with the other guys, always trying to convey positiveness and conveying positivity means accepting the coach’s choices that can benefit the other players and I think this is a great thing…
“And I have to say that with Alphonse, Sebastien and Thomas, we have created a really great working unit, with friendship and admiration, and I think that is our greatest victory as goalkeepers.”