Italy’s players would be on a bitter summer break if Gianluigi Donnarumma wouldn’t be one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
The 25-year-old has been at the top for what seems like an eternity. Donnarumma has played a total of almost 400 matches in his club teams, an incredible amount for his age. There are already 65 international matches, spanning eight years.
This summer, he has once again proven that Italy’s future is secured when it comes to goalkeepers.
Italy beat Albania in their European Championship opener because Donnarumma saved a last-minute drive. In their second match, Italy succumbed to Spain by just one goal as Donnarumma made eight saves. In the third match against Croatia, he made a save Luka Modric penalty kick.
After the group stage, he has a total of 12 saves. Italy do not feast on goals, so Donnarumma is the main reason why the reigning champions made it to the last 16.
Still, he does not receive full approval from the Italian football public. Donnarumma is the best in the world, but also the most hated.
The reasons go far back in history. Donnarumma was the rising favorite at the age of 16. In his twenties, he was a traitor to his favorite club and a mercenary.
Most of the world has been looking for the “next” for years Lionel Messi“. In Italy, on the other hand, there was talk for a long time about “the next About Gianluigi Buffon“.
Such a one had been found when the super promise who bore the same first name debuted with a goal for AC Milan at the age of 16. Donnarumma was the second youngest goalkeeper debutant in Serie A, younger than Buffon in his debut.
Behind the goal was a teammate from Milan’s junior team as the ball boy, as if to emphasize the steepness of the uphill jump.
– I was born a Milan supporter. Then my brother got to play for Milan’s academy. From that my passion for these colors only grew, he told Italy’s Sky Sport in the year 2015.
Despite his passion, Donnarumma is not from Milan, or even close. His roots are further south, on the outskirts of Naples. He left for the north at the age of 14 after getting a contract with one of the biggest football clubs in the world.
At the age of 11, he had been 188 centimeters tall. Fed up with the doubts, the mother carried the birth certificate with her, so that the boy could definitely play with his peers. At the age of 15, he was sitting on the AC Milan bench. At the age of 16, he became a regular face in an otherwise depressing team.
The coaches, including the boys’ national teams, praised his mature nature. He was described as a humble boy, a family-oriented and deeply religious youth who was not shaken by his rapid rise to fame.
Donnarumma was also hard to talk about dreams. He painted cloud castles where AC Milan and the little boy who carried its colors in his heart would experience the best moments of football together.
He said he dreams of winning the Italian championship as a Milan player. He said he dreams of winning the Champions League as a Milan player. He said he dreams of captaining Milan.
– Maybe in ten years. I’m already a permanent member of the lineup. This couldn’t get any better, he said For Corriere dello Sport.
Less than five years later, Milan had been left behind. At least in light of the current situation, going back seems impossible.
Donnarumman and Mino Raiola – the infamous late super agent’s cooperation could probably lead to nothing but a fight.
Raiola was known as a hard-headed negotiator who would have burned the bridges to all the top clubs if he hadn’t had the world’s most sought-after players in his team.
Donnarumma was one of them. His transfer saga was long and exhausting. Right away, the first contract negotiations went off the rails. Raiola was said to use great power and forbid Donnarumma to sign a new contract. In public, he said that he considers the teenager a player worth 170 million euros.
– Raiola informed us that Donnarumma had made an absolute decision not to renew his contract, Milan’s management at the time told the media.
It made the fans furious, and the aggression was directed specifically at the player. Even the previous winter, Donnarumma’s jersey had topped the sales statistics.
The biggest supporter groups condemned the greed, especially after Donnarumma repeatedly stated in interviews his desire to continue in the same colors far into the future. Big clubs up to Real Madrid were immediately busy. At the European Youth Championships in the summer of 2017, fake money was already thrown at Donnarumma’s goal.
After the tournament, the club and the player found an agreement – at least on paper, because the dispute continued. The agent scolded the company publicly and told about the lack of trust.
Even the supporters were not convinced. In the Italian Cup match, a sheet was waiting behind the goal demanding Donnarumma’s departure. Donnarumma and his camps had demanded too much, and at too young an age. The terms of the extension contract had included the hiring of Donnarumma’s older brother in the role of Milan’s third goalkeeper.
“Patience is over,” Milan fans declared in 2017. The expression surprised and broke Donnarumma.
– A horrible evening that I couldn’t expect, he wrote on Instagram after being comforted by, for example, Leonardo Bonucci.
The contract signed by Donnarumma at the age of 18 lasted until 2021. In the last two seasons, he was awarded as the best goalkeeper in Serie A. For the second time, it was no longer possible to keep him in Milan. In the last months, Raiola was said to have demanded an annual salary of ten million euros and giant bonuses for his protégé.
The club’s football manager, national team legend Paolo Maldini finally told that Donnarumma will leave the club when his contract expires. In the eyes of the fans, Donnarumma had been “one of their own”, a fan who had become the star of his favorite club.
The fact that he chose the Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain as his new club, which recruited world stars with big money in their quest for the top of Europe, did not increase sympathy.
A deafening homecoming
Last fall there was a moment that had been expected in Milan, but which Donnarumma had dreaded.
AC Milan and PSG were drawn in the same group in the Champions League and Donnarumma had to face the masses he left behind. On a Tuesday night circled on the calendar, nearly 76,000 spectators packed the San Siro stadium to wait for the first glimpse of the man branded a traitor.
If time had done its job and someone had forgiven, the Italian media did remind us of what was to come.
The whistling concert was dizzying. During goalkeeper warm-ups. During the assembly demonstration. Donnarumma running to his goal after the cut-off. After each save. Every time PSG played the ball into their goalkeeper’s foot. All night.
It is not necessary to write out the chants echoed in the stadium. The Milanese’s plan was that at the appointed moment, everyone would throw specially made banknotes onto the field.
The Milan supporters’ group said that the proceeds from the bundles of banknotes sold for two euros would be donated to local football schools.
– So that we never again raise people who have no values, the supporters wrote in their announcement.
Patience was not enough. Fake dollars flew onto the field throughout the evening.
Donnarumma’s face was placed in the middle of the banknote. He was described as a mercenary and the name was twisted into a new form.
Donnarumma blocked the first half of the match in front of Milan’s fan base, surrounded by wads of banknotes.
A hero, but not a favorite
In his national team debut, Donnarumma was replaced by his idol during the break. He became the youngest goalkeeper in the history of the Italian national team. Buffon himself described his successor as special.
In the 2016 European Championship, Buffon was in goal when Italy lost to Germany in the penalty shootout in the quarterfinals. In the following games, Donnarumma will already be guarding the blood ice. Fittingly symbolically, he became a hero precisely in the penalty shootout.
Italy overthrew England in the EC final, where Donnarumma stopped two England attempts from 11 metres. Already in the semi-finals, he had saved one of Spain’s penalty kicks.
Donnarumma’s saves decided the final in favor of Italy.
He became the first goalkeeper in European Championship history to be awarded as the tournament’s best player.
A five-year crisis also ended during the championship celebrations. Donnarumma officially became the goalkeeper of the Parisians three days after the European Championship final.
He has been successful there. Every season has ended with a championship.
In Italy, however, you don’t follow the French league for love of the sport, but with water on your tongue, ready to catch mistakes. The most expensive was seen in the Champions League playoffs, when Donnarumma mistimed the ball with his foot and gifted Real Madrid a goal. The moment turned out to be a turning point and PSG was eliminated from the playoffs.
When Italy plays international matches on its home field, Donnarumma, at best, only shares opinions. When Italy plays in Milan, his name is always buried under the whistles.
That didn’t change when he won the European Championship for his country.
That hasn’t changed, even as he continues in Buffon’s footsteps as the youngest player to captain the Italian national team in nearly 60 years.