Report: Gianluigi Buffon agrees to personal terms with Juventus

The wheels are clearly in motion when it comes to Gianluigi Buffon making a shocking return to Juventus a little over a year after his extremely emotional farewell.

And one of the steps along the way is Buffon is agreeing to what everybody believes will be a one-year contract. Good thing is that step seems to be already achieved.

According to Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti on Friday morning, Buffon and Juventus have agreed to personal terms on the 41-year-old’s soon-to-be official one-year contract. After years of being one of Juventus’ highest-paid players — and rightfully so, obviously — Buffon will now be one of the lowest-paid members of Maurizio Sarri’s squad, with Agresti reporting that Juve’s former No. 1 will earn a salary of €1.5 million plus some potential bonuses.

That’s over half of what Buffon’s salary was in the 2017-18 season when he was Juve’s fourth-highest paid player behind Gonzalo Higuain, Paulo Dybala and Douglas Costa. (That salary was €4.5 million net, in case you’re bad with numbers and don’t remember.)

I don’t want to assume much about how Buffon’s contract will be constructed, but I am going to think that those bonuses will have to do with appearances he makes during the 2019-20 season. Especially so since Buffon is coming to back to Turin to be the backup to the guy who was his backup the last time he was a Juventus player, Wojciech Szczesny.

All of this comes after Tuesday’s stunning report from Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca DI Marzio that Buffon is in serious talks to return to Juventus after spending a season with Paris Saint-Germain. Buffon had let it be known earlier in June that he wanted to play another season after announcing that he wasn’t going to take up the option year on his contract with PSG.

With rumors linking Buffon to such clubs like Porto — to take over for another legendary goalkeeper and friend Iker Casillas — and a handful of ones in Italy, it seemed like a formality that Buffon would indeed be playing football past his 42nd birthday in late January.

It just wasn’t even be considered Buffon’s next club would be the one he spent 17 seasons at as he became the gold standard of goalkeepers. But here we are, with Buffon expected to rejoin Juventus at some point in early July after his contract with PSG officially expires.