When Gianluigi Buffon broke the Italian football record for consecutive minutes without conceding — achieved in the 2016 Turin derby — he published a message of personal thanks to each of his teammates, including one word of particular warmth for the Brazilian goalkeeper sitting on the bench behind him. Neto, signed from Fiorentina in 2015 to serve as Buffon’s deputy, received the following tribute from the greatest goalkeeper in the club’s history: “I must thank him for the tranquillity he brings to the whole squad every time he takes to the pitch.”
A decade later, that same quality — tranquillity, reliability, serenity — is precisely what Juventus are looking for again. And Neto, still without a club at 37 after his Botafogo season, has put himself forward.
Why Neto Has an Extra Gear — and Why the Risk of Losing Vicario Concentrates Minds
The goalkeeper search has produced ten candidates in the days since Grabara’s anterior cruciate rupture — curricula arriving in rapid succession from every corner of the free agent market. Cragno, Gomis, Cillessen, Bruno Varela, Sergio Rico, Adam Stejskal, and Asmir Begovic are among the names on the list. But Neto is the one that carries the support of both Carnevali, Massara, and Ottolini on one side and Spalletti on the other — a rare and decisive alignment.
The driver of urgency is not merely Grabara’s absence. It is also the fragility of relying on Vicario as the sole competitive goalkeeper across three competitions. In his two seasons at Tottenham, the Italian required surgery for a hernia in 2025 and was sidelined by an ankle injury in 2024. He is currently in excellent physical condition — but at the Continassa, in a season defined by exceptional medical misfortune, prudence has become an institutional obligation rather than a preference.
The Old Grievance — and Why It No Longer Matters
When Neto left Juventus for Valencia in 2017, he did not depart without bitterness. “In Turin I didn’t feel the trust — what I did wasn’t important. I lost the will,” he said at the time. Allegri’s response was diplomatically indirect: “It would have been difficult for anyone with Buffon in front of them.”
Nearly a decade later, the context is entirely different. Neto is not competing with Buffon. He is being asked to provide exactly what his old club needs: a calm, reliable, experienced presence capable of performing at Serie A and Europa League level when called upon, without any ego-driven claim on the number one shirt. Since Juventus, he has performed well at Bournemouth in the Premier League and delivered a solid season with Botafogo in Brazil. He knows the environment. He knows the demands. And he is willing to sacrifice a significant portion of his salary to make the return happen. The chapter that appeared permanently closed is edging, quietly but concretely, back open.
