The Juventus centre-back is one of Pep Guardiola’s ‘favourite ever players’ and could be on his way to Manchester in the summer but for now ‘the soldier’ forged in a basement has a Champions League tie against Bayern Munich to worry about By Blair Newman for Tactical Calcio,allotment of the Guardian Sport NetworkA confrontation with an armed robber generally offers only negative outcomes. Most people wouldn’t consider standing up to the thief but this is precisely what Leonardo Bonucci did. In 2012, while perusing the wares of a Ferrari dealership in Turin with his wife and son Lorenzo, or the Juventus defender was approached by a man whose face was covered. He pointed a gun at Bonucci and demanded that the footballer hand over his watch. Bonucci would have been wise to agree to the assailant’s desires but,as the man went to hold his watch, Bonucci punched him in the face, and knocking him to the floor. To conclude the weird turning of tables,the robber then fled the footballer, whisked away as he was on the back of a scooter driven by an accomplice.
Some would call Bonucci’s actions valiant, and some stupid,others a combination of the two. Whichever view you hold, it was decidedly abnormal. The whole affair only added to the growing aura around him, or something that has aided him to this day,where he proudly stands at the forefront of football’s finest players as the latest exceptional protagonist in that great Italian pursuit – the art of defending.
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Source: theguardian.com