Buffon: ‘Winning isn’t easy’

By Football Italia staff

Gianluigi Buffon insists it wasn’t easy for Juventus to win six Scudetti in a row - “we fought and we won, no-one gave us anything”.

The Bianconeri have also won the double for the previous three seasons, and they can make it a Treble when they take on Real Madrid in the Champions League final on June 3.

Today the Juve captain wrote a column for La Stampa about their triumphs so far, and hit back at those who shrug off the Old Lady’s achievements.

“We won. Again. For the sixth consecutive time,” Buffon wrote.

“A record shared with Barza [Andrea Barzagli], Chiello [Giorgio Chiellini], Leo [Bonucci], Stephan [Lichtsteiner] and Claudio [Marchisio]: The old people of the group [naturally I’m not saying old… except Andrea, he really is old].

“With the passing of the months, the games, the successes, many have talked about pre-announced wins, downhill paths, an easy League and manifest superiority. I don’t agree.

“Those who have never won anything think about making banal the hard work of those who succeed. For this sixth Scudetto there was nothing expected, foreseeable or secure.

“We were favourites of course, because of what we’ve built over the last five seasons.

“But we started from nothing, we were questioned, we fought and we won. Nobody gave us anything.

“Every team which faces us gives everything, everyone cheers against us. That’s normal, the strongest are always the most hated.

“I keep the antipathy though and leave to the others the envy for the feat which this club, all of the club, has managed to achieve.

“The first word I think of after each victory is ‘tomorrow’. I’m proud of the trophies I’ve won, I feel like a man of my time, but it’s that which is still waiting for me which keeps me alive and in constant motion.

“I’ve had more than I ever wanted from life, certainly more than I asked.

“In front of a new finish line, in the face of a new objective achieved, I always have the awareness of having given everything and having received - if possible - even more.

“It’s a backdrop of constant gratitude in life which forces me to be an optimist and pushes me to go beyond myself, beyond wins, beyond the limit.

“I have six Scudetti in a row, but also 10 in my career [including the two revoked in the Calciopoli scandal].

“Yes, 10. I’m not ashamed to say that. I won them all, on the pitch, next to the champions whose faces, fatigue and smiles I can see as I write.

“The FIGC, Wikipedia or the Lega [Serie A] say there are eight. I won’t discuss referees, judges or laws, but no-one can deny me the right to feel all of them.

“My first love was a girl I met in high school, but it was an unrequited love. But what’s important, for me, is love. Recognition in life isn’t everything.

“Some Vasco songs or Neruda poems feel intimately mine. I didn’t write them myself, but that’s relative because in the end as Troisi wrote in ‘Il Postino’, poetry isn’t about who writes it, but who it helps.

“No controversy then. No willingness to open close chapters. Just pride for what I built, won and conquered on the pitch. Never alone, always in a team!

“A pride which comes back to me is the summer of 2006. A hot and frenzied summer, a summer of understandable exits and an exodus which couldn’t be judged.

“But also a summer of conformations and a desire to change history. In fact, to write history. No-one like us. No-one before us.

“I’m thinking of Pavel [Nedved], Alex [Del Piero], David [Trezeguet], Camo [Mauro Camoranesi]… and then myself.

“We chose to stay together to honour a shirt, a club, a fanbase. We lost everything to gain things which aren’t measurable and can’t be bartered: respect, affection.

“Founding values for a group and a team, because without us there would be no victories, records and conquests.

“I don’t want to enter into the quotation dictionary, but without all those who work on the pitch and off the pitch [maybe in the shadows] to allow me to do my best, all of this wouldn’t be possible.

“And the most amazing this is that all of this is still not over.”

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