Tuesday night saw the return of the Champions League in the form of Juventus vs Harry Kane… I mean Tottenham; it was back with a bang! A riveting game saw Spurs fight back from 2-0 to gain an impressive draw and, more importantly, two crucial away goals. For the neutral, this was the best result yet, it could prove detrimental to the footballing world as we know it.

If the Old Lady fails to triumph over Spurs at Wembley, it would confirm our greatest fears, a knife right to our nostalgic hearts, Gianluigi Buffon will retire from professional football. Last year alone we lost Pirlo, Xavi, Lampard, Totti, Kuyt, Lahm, Kaka, and Xabi Alonso, to name a few…

Buffon announced that if Juve wins the Champions League, he will stay on one final year to play in the Club World Cup. One final year to pretend I’ll be okay, pretend I won’t cry. It’s what Buffon would want.

Thankfully there were a few Spurs players who understood the dire situation we find ourselves in. Specifically, Ben Davies and Serge Aurier who were both still in nappies when Buffon made his professional debut. Both players gave away cynical penalties to help the Old Lady’s cause. Unfortunately, Harry Kane and Christian Erikson had other ideas, with the former rounding Buffon to pass into an open net, and the latter beating the 2017 keeper of the year from a dead ball situation.

The third coolest guy to ever play football (after Pirlo and Xabi Alonso) started his career at the age of 17 for Parma against, then world beaters, AC Milan. Milan boasted an attacking line up of Ballon d’Or winner George Weah (not his cousin), Robert Baggio’s hair, and Croatian playmaker Zvonimir Boban. Hardly an ideal team for the young Italian to start his professional career.

Since then Buffon has gone on to steal many hearts, including mine, in his 1000 plus games for clubs and country. He has more trophies than some clubs can dream of cough cough Spurs cough cough. Any honour Buffon doesn’t have, be it domestic, European or worldwide, probably isn’t worth winning. Apart from the Champions League he’s going to win this season.

There are only three things you can count on these days death, taxes and Gianluigi Buffon making me smile on a Tuesday night. So, this a message to Harry Kane and the boys. Don’t break my heart, my achy breaky heart, I just don’t think he’d understand.