Gigi Buffon also resigned: "I would have done it right away but…"

The umpteenth Azzurri failure shakes Coverciano: after FIGC president Gabriele Gravina also announced his resignation Italy’s head of delegation Gianluigi Buffon, who on social media in a letter explained his decision, recounting his bitterness for an adventure gone wrong.

“Resigning a minute after the end of the match against Bosnia was an impelling act, which came out of my heart. Spontaneous as the tears and that ache in my heart that I know I share with all of you.
I was asked to stall so that everyone could do the right reflections,” the former Juventus number one wrote.

“Now that President Gravina has chosen to take a step back, I feel free to do what I feel as an act of responsibility, because, although I sincerely believe that I have built so much at the level of spirit and group with Rino Gattuso and all the staff, in the very little time available to the national team, the main objective was to take Italy back to the World Cup. And we did not succeed. It is right to leave to those who will come after the freedom to choose the figure they will consider best to fill my role.”

Buffon, however, claimed his work in the Azzurri: “Representing the national team is for me an honor and a passion that has been devouring me since I was a little boy. I have tried to interpret my assignment by putting all my energies into it, looking at all sectors to be a link, of dialogue and synergy between the various youth teams, trying to structure, together with the various managers, a project that starting from the very young arrives up to the U21 National Team. All of this is to rethink the way in which the talents of the future major national team are raised.”

“I have asked for and obtained the inclusion of a few, important figures with strong experience, who together with the skills already present, are creating these necessary changes with a medium- and long-term vision. This is because I believe in the policy of meritocracy and specialization of tasks. It will be up to those in charge to judge the goodness of these choices.
I carry everything in my heart, with gratitude for the privilege and the teaching that, even in the painful epilogue, this intense experience leaves me. Forza Azzurri always.”