Buffon: Over-confidence cost Juventus in 2017 final

Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has claimed that his team were “too confident” ahead of the 2017 Champions League final against Real Madrid.Juventus matched Real Madrid for long spells of the showpiece event in Cardiff, but the Spanish giants scored three times in the final 30 minutes to record a 4-1 victory at the Millennium Stadium.

The two teams will again lock horns in the quarter-finals of this season’s competition, and Buffon has insisted that Juventus are now better placed to face the reigning European champions.

“Our big error in that final was that we were confident and we were probably too confident,” Buffon told Diario AS. “It is hard to have too many regrets as the stronger team on the day deserved to win the game and it was an important lesson for all of us.

“For me it is important psychologically as that was 300 days ago and I was 39, and now I am 40, and in your head that is a big change.

“We know Real Madrid are the best team in the world, they have to be as they have won each of the last two Champions League finals, and nobody has done that. But we fight and will have hope and life until the end of the second leg.”

Juventus will welcome Real Madrid for the first leg of their last-eight tie on Tuesday night before making the trip to the Bernabeu next week.