Gianluigi Donnaruma's Life and Career Journey in Football "Fenomenal Young Goalkeeper Italy"

Gianluigi Donnaruma was born on February 25, 1999 in Castellammere, Italy. Donnaruma comes from a middle class family. Donnaruma was born by the couple Alfonso and Marinela. The father is a football fan, who is not officially an agent for Donnaruma.

Whereas the mother is the person who has contributed the most to her career development. Donnaruma was raised with his two brothers, Antonio and Alfredo, and his sister, Nunzia.

The story of Donnaruma's childhood was a little different from most of the other goalkeepers, Donnaruma did not immediately recognize football after he could walk. But thanks to the support of his parents who like to exercise and his brother who also loves football, Donnaruma began to know what soccer is.

Donnaruma was introduced to football by the uncle, at that time the uncle often invited Donnaruma to the field in his village, since then Donnaruma was eager to further pursue the game of the round skin.

To begin his career, when he was only four years old, Donnaruma joined the Napoli academy. There Donnaruma had no choice but to be a goalkeeper, a position he often played when trained by his uncle.

Little Donnaruma idolized the legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. He made Buffon his role model. Over time Donnaruma discovered and performed the technical abilities that characterize his current goalkeeper style.

At the age of 14, his strength and ability as a goalkeeper made many Italian club talent scouts such as Juventus, AS Roma, Udinese, Fiorentina and Inter Milan Desire to recruit him. But Donnaruma actually anchored to AC Milan, which is his idol club and also the club that had been defended by his brother, Antonio.

With AC Milan's youth team, Donnaruma always plays with players who are older than him, because Donnaruma is considered to have excellent technical advantages.

Donnaruma's career as a goalkeeper experienced rapid development. Until when he was only 16 years old, Donnaruma was called to the Milan first team who was then trained by Filipo Inzaghi. Although at the beginning of his career with the first team Donnaruma was never played, but his presence on the bench has shown great things in the future.

In the 2015/16 season, Donnaruma began to often get minutes to play, his debut took place at the International Champions Cup against Real Madrid on July 30, shortly afterwards he helped AC Milan win the Trophy TIM trophy.

Donnaruma made his debut in Serie A on October 25 against Sassuolo at the San Siro at the age of 16 years and 242 days. Donnaruma is the second youngest goalkeeper to make his debut in the history of Italian football; 13 days older than Giuseppe Sacchi, who coincidentally made his Serie A debut with Milan on the same date, 73 years ago.

Three days later, Donnarumma made his first clean sheet in a 1-0 win against Chievo. In early 2016, Donnaruma officially replaced Diego Lopez as AC Milan's main goalkeeper.

His performance at the beginning of his career with the AC Milan first team was very good, Donnaruma earned a reputation as one of the most promising young goalkeepers in the world. He also broke the record as the youngest U-21 Italian national team player who had played at the age of 17 years and 28 days in March 2016.

Two months earlier, Donnaruma made his first appearance in a match titled Della Madonina, where Milan won 3-0 over Inter.

Eight months later, or rather in September 2017 Donnaruma made his senior international debut, becoming the youngest goalkeeper ever to appear for Italy, at the age of 17 years 189 days.

In the 2015/16 season Donnaruma made 31 appearances in all competitions. At the end of 2016, for his performance Donnaruma received an award as the youngest best Italian athlete from well-known media, Gazzeta Della Sports.

In the following season, in the opening match of Serie A against Torino, Donnarumma saved the first penalty of his professional career; he stopped Andrea Belotti's shot in injury time, which earned Milan a 3-2 victory.

His first match in the European scene occurred when Milan against CSU Craiova in the first leg of the European League third round qualifying on July 27, 2017, where Milan took a 1-0 lead, Donnaruma again managed to keep a clean sheet.

Donnaruma did not concede again in the second leg, where Milan won 2-0, his Clean Sheet resumed while helping Milan win the victory over Shkëndija in the first leg of the play-offs.

On 30 December 2017, Donnarumma played his 100th match for Milan in a 1–1 draw against Fiorentina. That made him the youngest player to have performed 100 times wearing the AC Milan Jersey.

Five months later, Donnarumma became the youngest player to reach 100 appearances in Serie A, at the age of 19 years and 49 days, after playing in a match that ended in a 0-0 draw against Napoli. In the 2017/18 season, Donnaruma made 53 appearances.

On 3 February 2019, Donnarumma was named the man-of-the-match in a match that ended Milan's 1-1 draw with AS Roma on the 21st matchday of the 2018-19 Serie A season. Donnaruma's slick appearance under Mistar helped AC Milan occupy fifth place in the final standings, one level better than the previous season. In that season Donnaruma appeared in 39 matches.

On the international stage, Donnaruma became the Italian goalkeeper in several young teams, he had appeared to defend the u-15, u-17 and u-21 teams. His debut with the senior national team occurred on 1 September 2017 in the World Cup qualifier against France.

Outside of football, Donnaruma will spend a lot of time with friends and family, not only that, the lover of Allesia Elefante is also a video game fan. Donnaruma often plays games in his spare time.

Despite looking good under the crossbar, but the goalkeeper with a height of almost two meters also certainly has weaknesses. Now Donnarumma has become the heir of the Idol, Gianluigi Buffon in the Italian national team. His brilliant appearance at a young age allowed him to become the world's best goalkeeper in 2 or 3 years.