PIC: Gianluigi Buffon was within a whisker of mauling the face off the referee last night

We've been besotted with Gigi Buffon since about 1997 but we think we'd draw the line at a handshake.

The same can't be said for referee Jonas Eriksson who let his guard down and revealed his apparent crush on the Juventus stopper during last night's Champions League semi-final second leg. It looks very much like the Swedish official was leaning in for the score and, to be fair, it doesn't appear as though the Italian stopper had any problem with it.

Buffon and the ref need to get a room #RealJuve pic.twitter.com/GY7va8TSJR

— Paul McConnell (@paulmcconnell3) May 13, 2015

We think the only thing that stopped this from descending into full-on mauling is that Eriksson spotted Andrea Pirlo over Buffon's shoulder and thought "I'd prefer a bit of that."