Leonardo Bonucci, the former Juventus and Milan defender, recently opened up about his career and some of the toughest opponents he faced. While he shared the pitch with many greats, he surprisingly omitted Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as his toughest adversary.

During an appearance on Sky Calcio Club, Bonucci said that the forward that caused him sleepless nights was Duvan Zapata, who is currently playint with Torino. “My nightmare, who didn’t make me sleep at night, was Zapata. God, before games against his Atalanta side, I couldn’t sleep. His power and physicality made him my nightmare,” the Italian center-back admitted.

He also mentioned how much he enjoyed his battles with Luis Suarez. “The one that hit me the most and the one I had more fun with was Luis Suarez because he hit and got hit without any problem,” he explained.

Bonucci is known as one of the best defenders of his generation. Among his achievements, we can include his eight Serie A titles with Juventus, the UEFA EURO 2020 with Italy, and reaching two Champions League Finals.

The veteran defender retired last summer after spending his final professional season with Union Berlin and Fenerbahce. Bonucci leaves behind a storied career with the Italy national team as well, having made his senior debut in 2010 and scoring eight goals in 121 appearances.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo still fuel the GOAT debate

While both Messi and Ronaldo are in the twilight of their careers, both forwards are still the center of the conversation when it comes to discussing the greatest players of all the time. Especially as they both have continued to be successful in the United States and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

Messi has recently clinched the Supporters’ Shield with Inter Miami, the first for the club, and he will have a chance to also compete for the MLS Championship in the upcoming playoffs. Meanwhile, Ronaldo keeps adding to his scoring tally to 905 goals.

Juventus and Italy national team legends Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci couldperfectly fit in that category. The veteran defenders have spent a long, successfultime together at the Old Lady and the Azzurri.

Chiellini, 37, and Bonucci, 34, have recently taken their superheroe status to the next level. In an appearance in the Wild Moss podcast of Fedez and Luis Sal, the Italian defenders ‘became’the Avengers for a particular reason.

Chiellini, Bonucci become Captain America and Thor in Italian podcast

The Juventus and Italy national team pair sat down to discuss about their careers in the Wild Moss podcast, in an interesting interview in which they mentioned Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, among other topics.

However, a mistake from Fedez, rapper and host of the show, has resulted in their words to be dubbed by the Italian voices of the Avengers. He forgot to turn the microphones on at the time of recording soAngelo Maggi, Marco Vivio, Massimiliano Manfredi, and Alex Polidori (Italian voices of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Spider-Man, respectively) repeated what Fedez, Chiellini, Bonucci, and Luis Sal said.

Besides this funny situation, Chiellini and Bonucci left some interesting quotes. For instance, they talked about Cristiano Ronaldo’s humorousside.“We were prepared for the media hype that would come with everything he [Ronaldo] did from when he arrived. But once he became part of the group, he behaved normally and well with everybody. He didn’t act like a superstar. He’s a walking multinational company himself, but you could joke with him.”

The documentary, which most likely the Juventus brass would like to take back, did not feature the Italian Old Lady in all its glory but captured a rather lackluster season which saw Cristiano Ronaldo pack his bags and move to Manchester and saw Andrea Pirlo removed from his coaching position after an uneventful Champions League and bland fourth place finish in Serie A.

Not all is bad footage, there is the viral Weston McKennie moment where the American admits to putting ranch dressing on Pizza, yuck. Here is Leonardo Bonucci ripping into his teammates against Benevento.

Leonardo Bonucci yells at teammates after bad first half against Benevento

In the scene Leonardo Bonucci was furious and goes all out on his team’s poor first half showing telling everyone that “if we want to win the Scudetto, we can’t play like this!”, the now 34-year-old defender continues with “When we have the ball, we can’t play like this! Like this we won’t win $***!”

Even Cristiano Ronaldo admitted that the first half was terrible saying “He’s right!” and throws something to the floor. The halftime shaking did little to help Juventus who returned for the second half to only give up a goal and lose to Benevento 1-0 in a historic defeat which ended the team’s title hopes and their shot at any major title that season.