The current season has become a meme-war without end, an endless rolling wall of gloat and taunt in which players and managers must try to block out the noise
In his new book, Saved, Gianluigi Buffon talks about feeling crushed by nerves even at the peak of his playing career. The day before the 2006 World Cup final Buffon and Gennaro Gattuso walked past the French squad after training and were immediately sent into a tailspin by their opponents’ intimidating size and athleticism.
“We don’t stand a chance,” Gattuso joked, not actually joking. Buffon spent most of the night smoking in the hotel corridor with half the Italy team. At breakfast nobody could speak. They turned up at the stadium already feeling exhausted.
Luckily Buffon found his own way to cope. Before kick-off he stripped naked and sat in the dressing room talking to his goalie gloves. “I started a discussion with them. It was as if that inseparable instrument of my work could give something back to me. A part of me thinks that spirits or energies lurk in those objects and that they can affect games.”
Buffon went out feeling calm, made some brilliant saves, and was in goal when Italy won the penalty shootout and a fourth World Cup.
