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Guglielmo Vicario’s form at Empoli was rewarded with a move to Tottenham where he has taken the place of a World Cup winner in Hugo Lloris. Ivan Provedel was named the league’s goalkeeper of the year for his role in Lazio’s 21 clean sheets and return to the Champions League. Out of sight and out of mind in Paris, where Buffon went to play only when he was 40, other Italian goalkeepers have stepped into the spotlight in Serie A. His performance in the final against England has been quickly forgotten. Another is Milan won the league in the season he left, a year in which Mike Maignan played so well no one missed Donnarumma even though he was the penalty shootout hero and player of the tournament when Italy won the Euros the previous summer. One of the reasons is he never played in the Champions League with Milan. Outside of Italy, where he has been hyped since even before his debut as a 16-year-old for AC Milan, Donnarumma does not have as high profile as his talent probably merits. His decision to go to a less visible league and play for a club that other global superstars have either left ( Lionel Messi and Neymar) or always seem on the brink of leaving ( Kylian Mbappe) has not helped his cause. Since Donnarumma’s move to Paris Saint-Germain, however, he is no longer one of the golden boys of the local press corp. “There are now five or six (Italian) goalkeepers playing at a very high level and that’s without getting into Donnarumma who is well-established and competing with the world’s best.” “In the last three or four years, the pool has gotten much deeper,” Buffon said at a press conference called to announce his new role. To say he has an embarrassment of riches available to him in the goalkeeper position would be an overstatement. There were calls for him to drop Donnarumma. Spalletti’s choices immediately came under scrutiny. It was billed by RAI’s commentator Alberto Rimedio as a play-off to avoid a play-off.

The draw in North Macedonia made Tuesday’s game against Ukraine a must-win. Only one game into his new job, Luciano Spalletti would be forgiven if he had briefly wondered why on earth he’d left his sabbatical bottling wine on his Tuscan vineyard for the pressure of qualifying Italy for a major tournament. Wrong-footed, he was beaten at the very post he was defending. Donnarumma had stepped the other way as Bardhi struck the ball.

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They were 1-0 up with less than 10 minutes to go only for Enis Bardhi to whip a free kick past Donnarumma and clinch another proud result for his country.Īs was the case last year, the armchair goalkeeper coaches were out in force. Last weekend did not bring the same level of ignominy. He had been unable to reach the only goal of the game a low, skipping Aleksandar Trajkovski shot from outside the box. The pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport flying off the printing presses called him the “No 1 problem”.ĭonnarumma had been one of the scapegoats when Italy lost a World Cup play-off to North Macedonia at the Renzo Barbera in March 2022. Inside the Italy locker room, Buffon’s hulking successor Gianluigi Donnarumma prepared to face the Skopje moonlight knowing that there were no fans waiting for him, only critics. Instead, Superman pulled on his cape and made one of the best saves of his career.ĭimitrievski was nine years old at the time and seemed to become that boy again when Buffon, in his new ambassadorial role with the Italian team, walked out with a big smile and signed his old shirt for him.