Gianluigi Buffon: King of Wearing Outfield Kits

Jan 28, 2023

by Patrick

Gianluigi Buffon celebrates his 45th birthday today and is still going strong in Serie B with his boyhood club, Parma. Here we celebrate the occasion by admiring his penchant for wearing outfield kits while playing in goal.

Gigi Buffon and His Outfield Kits

Gianluigi Buffon is considered one of the best keepers of all time and has enjoyed a remarkable career. As well as winning the World Cup, 10 Scudetti, 6 Coppe Italia and a UEFA Cup among others, he's also the only goalkeeper to have racked up over 500 clean sheets. He has more Serie A appearances than anyone else and once had run of 974 minutes without conceding a goal, another Serie A record. On top of all of that, he's always had a thing for wearing outfield kits. A goalkeeper foregoing his usual jersey in favour of his team's home or away shirt is a rare and beautiful sight, an oddity that everyone seems to appreciate. Nobody has done it more often that Buffon, so on his birthday, let's take a look at some of those occasions.

Parma

Buffon came up through the ranks at Parma and spent six years there before moving on. It was there that he first changed things up by wearing various Parma home, away and third shirts during their Lotto and Champion years.

Now in his second stint with the club, you know that he had to find an occasion to wear their home Erreà shirt at least once. With his contract running til 2024 and Parma switching to Puma next season, he still has time to tick another brand off his outfield kit list.

Juventus

Buffon became the world's most expensive goalkeeper upon his move to Turin in 2001, with Juve paying a massive €52 million for his services. It's safe to say they got a decent return on their investment. Gigi stuck around until 2018, then came back on a free after his season in Paris for another two years.

In the early part of his first spell in particular, he was semi-regularly spotted in outfield jerseys, wearing the home, away and third shirts by Nike across the 02-03 season.

Italy

2018 marked the end of a 21 year career with the Italian national team. One of his final games was a World Cup qualifier against Macedonia in October 2017, when Italy were to debut their new home kit. They did things a little differently, as the team wore their white away kit while Buffon wore their new blue shirt, the first ever time an Italian national team goalkeeper had done so. No better man.