Juventus will beat Real Madrid in the Champions League final to atone for 2015 heartbreak, says Andrea Pirlo
Pirlo has also tipped Gianluigi Buffon to win the next Ballon d'Or
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Your support makes all the difference.Italian football legend Andrea Pirlo has backed Juventus to beat Real Madrid in Saturday night’s Champions League final in Cardiff, claiming that the Serie A champions always deliver in the games that matter.
Pirlo played for Juventus between 2011 and 2015 and was a key part of the team that reached the 2015 final in Berlin, only to lose to Barcelona 3-1.
But the classy central midfielder, who now plays in the MLS for New York City, thinks Juventus are now a far stronger team and will beat their Spanish opponents in this year’s showpiece final.
“I was not surprised by Juve, even if it's not easy to win everything, as I knew this season they were targeting the Champions League. I expected nothing other than this,” Pirlo wrote in Italian magazine La Stampa.
“I remember in December, when I went back to Turin and had dinner with Gigi, chatting to other former team-mates too, they were convinced they had a great squad and could go all the way.
“There was that confidence and hunger, which I too have known. A final is not yet the end and Real are a great team; there's reason to fear, but that's true of all opponents at this level.
“If Juve face this test the way they know how, they've got a big chance of winning. At the end of the day, this season they never got it wrong in the games that matter.
“I know that in July you will come to play around these parts and I'll visit. I'd happily say hello to the cup.”
The 38-year-old also tipped his fellow Italian veteran Gianluigi Buffon for this year’s prestigious Ballon d’Or award.
The last – and only – time a goalkeeper won the award was in 1963, when the great Lev Yashin was honoured for his outstanding performances for both Dynamo Moscow and the Soviet Union.
And Pirlo thinks it is about time a goalkeeper won the award again.
“I am happy for Gianluigi Buffon,” Pirlo added. “He's been waiting a lifetime to lift this cup. I hope he wins it, after coming so close at other times. I say this as a friend and a former team-mate, someone who knows him well. He deserves it, it's the only thing he's missing.
“I read that he could win the Ballon d'Or; he hasn't surprised me, not even in this extraordinary season, because when he truly believes in something and has that objective in his head, he'll do anything to reach it.”
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