Buffon, Ibra and Co.: This world selection said goodbye to 2023

He ends his professional career where he started it: in Parma. He made his debut at the age of 17. It is his first of 975 appearances in professional football. The first game in which Gianluigi Buffon (45) is invincible. There followed 429 matches without conceding a goal. He became champion ten times with Juve and later won the championship title with PSG, but he was denied victory in the Champions League. The highlight of his career was the 2006 World Cup title in Germany, but the best goalkeeper in the world for many years also experienced the low point with the “Squadra Azzurra”. Italy lost to Sweden in the 2017 World Cup play-offs. Buffon misses his sixth World Cup participation. His tears are symbolic of the entire nation.

The tough defender will end his career at Velez Sarsfield in the summer. Godin played for Atletico Madrid for nine years, won the championship title with the “Colchoneros” and reached the Champions League final twice with them. The Uruguayan was sometimes considered the best central defender in the world. With 161 international matches, he is the record player of his country and in 2011 he won the Copa America with Uruguay.

After the end of the MLS season, the Italian announced his retirement. Football was his everything. “But now it is time to open new chapters,” the defender wrote on Instagram. Stephan Lichtsteiner’s old teammate won nine championship titles with Juve and will become European champion with Italy in 2021. Haris Seferovic calls Chiellini the toughest opponent of his career: “He was a dirtbag. He read the game, the ball, you, was fast, didn’t provoke you, but always beat you a little.” Chiellini has a master’s degree in business administration.

The centre-back was one of the cornerstones of Atletico Madrid’s title win in 2014. He then played for Inter for four years before ending his career domestically after a spell in China. He played 58 times for Brazil and took part in the 2018 World Cup. In 2019, he was part of the team that won the Copa America.

The German with Turkish roots, born in Gelsenkirchen, is one of the most brilliant footballers of his generation. He won the 2014 World Cup title with the DFB in Brazil, played three years at Real Madrid and eight years at Arsenal. Off the field, Özil is dribbling more and more often. In 2018, he posed for a photo with Turkish leader Recep Erdogan, who later also attended Ozil’s wedding, which led to a state scandal in Germany. After stepping down in the spring, he posed with a tattoo on his chest, the symbol of a nationalist Turkish party.

The midfielder with the striking haircut has been playing for Napoli for more than ten years and also replaces club icon Diego Maradona as record scorer. In 2019 he moved to China before finding his way to Trabzospor via Gothenburg, where he ended his career in the summer. “I lived my dream,” Hamsik says about his career. He played 136 international matches for Slovakia and took part in the 2010 World Cup and the 2016 and 2021 European Championships.

He wins everything with Spain: European champion in 2008 and 2012, world champion in 2010. And yet in ‘La Roja’ he is always in the shadow of Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta, even though Fabregas has played more than 100 international matches. His career took him from Arsenal, via Barcelona and Chelsea to Monaco, his last season he played in Como, where he subsequently became assistant coach and even took on the role of head coach in the meantime.

Thanks to his dribbling and technique, he was quickly considered the next Messi when he joined Barcelona’s first team as a teenager. But the son of a Serbian and a Spanish woman is denied a world career. He left Barça in 2011 and subsequently played in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Canada and Japan. “After traveling around the world, I am now returning home,” he announced on X in March. He is playing an international match for Spain.

He was considered the highest paid amateur golfer in the world when the Welshman sat alone in the stands at Real Madrid. Bale won the Champions League five times with the Royals and scored twice in the 2018 final against Liverpool, including with a spectacular bicycle kick. With Wales he reached the semi-finals of the European Championship in France in 2016. The winger most recently worked in the MLS.

With the Swede, one of the most dazzling figures of recent years leaves. Not only his goals, such as the bicycle kick from over twenty meters against England in 2012, are spectacular, but also his statements. He once said about Guardiola and Messi in Barcelona: “We don’t need the philosopher, the dwarf and I are enough.” He became champion in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France, but Ibra never won the Champions League.

The gifted dribbler is now a shadow of his former self after moving from Chelsea to Real Madrid in 2019. He is one of the heads of Belgium’s golden generation, which he led to third place at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. After retiring at the age of 32, he told Belgian newspaper L’avenir: “I always told myself that I would quit as soon as I stopped having fun on the field. I didn’t want to go into something for the money to play.”