There are few things I enjoy in this world more than watching Juventus' resident God-like figure, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, have a Man of the Match performance. That definitely is might be because I'm biased, but it's pretty much 100 percent the truth. Buffon is Buffon, regardless of him being your favorite player or close to the top of your power rankings.
Against AC Milan at the San Siro on Sunday night, it was a classic Buffon MOTM performance between the sticks — something that you should never ever tire of seeing.
Juventus weren't great as a team by any means, but Buffon was. His saves not only kept his 13th clean sheet of the season intact, but also made sure Juve would be heading back to Turin with three points. Those eight saves, a season high for Buffon, came from all kinds of angles — parried to his left, parried to his right, short range, long range.
It was Buffon putting on a clinic. Plain and simple.
Of course, with the way Juventus' defense has played these past few years, Buffon taking over a game singlehandedly hasn't been all that much of an occurrence. Not that it's such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things when your goalkeeper doesn't have to do much of anything over the course of 90 minutes. But it's always nice to know that when the time comes for it, Buffon is there waiting and willing to be, well, Buffon.
Or, we can read what Black & White & Read All Over match recap specialist Ivo Andov said in his Milan post regarding Buffon's latest and greatest MOTM showing.
Buffon: 8 - Was absolutely fantastic all night, beating out Milan's shots and chances. My man of match along with about 70 of you (per Danny's poll). Still got it, no doubt. A great clean sheet.
Or, we can let the man himself describe what he did after the 2-0 victory over Milan.
"That's what I'm here for. In games like these you need to show that experience and good fitness matter."
(Source: juventus.com)
Or, we can just post what he said on the Twitter machine after the match.
Vittoria importantissima, siamo stati bravi e fortunati... Avanti Juve!
— Gianluigi Buffon (@gianluigibuffon) March 2, 2014
Damn straight. The guy's still got it. There's no doubt in this Buffon worshiper's mind.