Last night Gianluigi Buffon went out in style...
The legendary Italian goalkeeper was sent off in the dying moments against Real Madrid after Lucas Vazquez was bundled over in the box and the home side were awarded a penalty.
Buffon stormed over to referee Michael Oliver and began screaming and shouting in his face. Oliver deemed the protests too much and promptly produced red.
Scenes.
As the dust settled it was left to Ronaldo to convert the spot-kick. His powerful top-corner strike proved too much for substitute keeper Wojciech Szczęsny and the La Liga giants progressed, as they so often have in recent seasons, to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
With Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane watching on, it wasn't long before comparisons were made with Buffon's late dismissal and Zidane's World Cup final head-butt departure.
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Comparison though, quickly turned into something more after Buffon's stunning comments from 2017 were unearthed.
When previously asked about hanging up his gloves, he told Sky: "How do I imagine my last ever game? Maybe I'll go out like [Zinedine Zidane], head-butting someone on the pitch!
"But before I think about how I'll end my career, we need to go to the World Cup in Russia in 2018. Maybe it [my last game] could be at the World Cup.
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"I still have some time to think about it though."
Yeah, that whole World Cup thing didn't quite work out as well a he'd planned, but credit where credit is due, he got the whole 'going out like Zidane' thing spot-on...
Despite the fact that we have probably seen the last of Buffon outside of Serie A, now could be a good time to reflect on the career of one of the great players on the modern era. 870 games and 393 clean sheets across 77,955 minutes of football.
What a legend!
Topics: Football News, zidane, Football, Buffon
