Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who played in his 648th Serie A game on Saturday, has set an outright record of the most number of appearances in Italy’s premier division league, beating AC Milan legend Paolo Maldini.

Buffon had been eagerly waiting to achieve the record after remaining stuck on 647 matches since December as Wojciech Szczesny became Juventus’ first-choice goalkeeper. However, he finally touched the landmark in Juventus’ 4-1 win over Torino at the empty Allianz Stadium.

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The 42-year-old had joined the Old Lady in 2001 after starting his career with Parma. During his 17 years long career at the Turin-based club, he had worked his way to become one of the best goalkeepers of this generation.

Even though he was supposed to retire after the 2017-18 season, he moved to the French club Paris Saint-Germain. He further shocked everyone when he returned to Juventus ahead of the ongoing season.

With Juventus, he has clinched 11 Scudetti, four Italian cups, six Italian Super Cups. He also won the Ligue 1 title and the French Super Cup with PSG and was the main goalkeeper in Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad.

Meanwhile, Serie A table-toppers Juventus, on the other hand, continued to wreak havoc and defeated Torino to extend their lead at the top by seven points.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored again and became the first Serie A player in 59 years to score 25 goals in a season. He was joined by Paulo Dybala, Juan Cuadrado and Koffi Djidji (own goal) on the scoresheet at the empty Allianz Stadium.

The home team wasted little time to resume their business as Argentine forward Dybala gave them the lead in just the third minute of the match with an excellent individual effort. Cuadrado doubled the lead in the 29th minute when he saw the back of the net after Ronaldo did all the hard work and laid the ball for him.

The visitors, though, put one back moments before the half-time break when Andrea Belotti converted a penalty in the sixth minute of the stoppage time.

However, the Old Lady did not allow Torino to gain momentum as they extended their lead, thanks to an impeccable free-kick from the Portuguese veteran Ronaldo. It was the first time the five-time Ballon d’Or winner had scored a free-kick in Serie A.

The home team were not done and inflicted further embarrassment into Torino when touring defender Koffi Djidji put the ball into his own net.