JUVENTUS F.C.

Share the Delle Alpi stadium (unsurprisingly at the foot of the Alps) in Turin with ‘cousins’ Torino (currently in Serie B). Their shirts have black and white stripes (hence the nickname "bianconeri") and the rest of the kit is white. No club side has won more Serie A titles (27) and they are by far the most popular team in Italy, with supporters absolutely everywhere (in Italy, it is quite usual for people who live in small towns to ‘adopt’ one of the big teams, especially if their local side is historically poor). ‘Juve’ is the most powerful club in Italian football and are almost regarded as an institution. Another one of their nicknames is the “vecchia signora”, the ‘old lady’, a name which underlines the respect earnt during their near domination of Italian football (a Serie A title more or less every 4 years, on average).
Juventus, along with Inter, have never been relegated. They did finish in a relegation spot once, around 80/90 years or so ago, but the rules were changed, Serie A was enlarged and the ‘old lady’ kept her place in the top flight.
Fans are desperate for European success and the only competition they’re interested in is the Champions League. They’ve ‘only’ won it twice and for the ‘aristocracy’ of Italian football to be trailing Milan (6 times winners) and Real Madrid (9 times) is as close to unbearable as you can get.
Above the Juventus crest on the shirts, you can see two gold stars: Each star represents 10 Serie A titles and when they get to 30 (3 to go), they will finally add that third star. The only other teams with a star are Milan (1 star, 17 titles) and Inter (also 1 star, 13 titles). If Milan get to the 2nd star before Juve get their 3rd, this will also be considered, by the fans, a body blow to the prestige of the club.


President

Franzo Grande Stevens (trusted long-time lawyer of the Agnelli family, who have a controlling interest in Fiat and therefore also Juventus. The Agnelli family is a dynasty which is as close to a modern royal family as you can get. Comparable to the Kennedy family in the United States)


Vice-President

Roberto Bettega (Superb striker who played for Juventus in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Best header of the ball I’ve ever seen)


Manager

Fabio Capello (another ex-Juve player, who also played for Milan towards the end of his career)


Squad

Goalkeepers

Gianluigi BUFFON (’78)
Landry BONNEFOI (’83) – from MESSINA
Antonio CHIMENTI (’70)


Defenders

Alessandro BIRINDELLI (’74)
Fabio CANNAVARO (’73) – from Inter
Ciro FERRARA (’67)
Mark LEGROTTAGLIE (’76)
Paolo MONTERO (’71)
Gianluca PESSOTTO (’70)
Lilion THURAM (’72)
Igot TUDOR (’78)
Jonathan ZEBINA (’78) – from Roma


Midfielders

Stephen APPIAH (’80)
Manuele BLASI (’79) – from Parma
Mauro German CAMORANESI (’76)
EMERSON (’76) – from Roma
Obou Narcisse Olivier KAPO (’80) – from Auxerre
Pavel NEDVED (’72)
Ruben OLIVERA (’83) – from Atletico Madrid
Alessio TACCHINARDI (’75)
Gianluca ZAMBROTTTA (’77)


Forwards

Alessandro DEL PIERO (’74)
Zlatan IBRAHIMOVIC (’81)
David TREZEGUET (’77)
Marcelo ZALAYETA (’78)


Players sold/released/loaned

CARINI to Inter, goalkeeper

CHIELLINI to Fiorentina, defender

MARESCA to Fiorentina, midfielder

CHIUMIENTO to Siena, forward
DI VAIO to Valencia, forward
MICCOLI to Fiorentina, forward


How they’ll play

Fabio Capello has spent his time in football management as an adversary of Juventus and a very vocal one at that. Surprisingly, Capello is already 58 years of age, though you would swear, by looking at him, his enthusiasm for the game and his bang up-to-date tactics, that he’s 7 or 8 years younger.
Older England fans will remember his goal at Wembley in the early ‘70s which gave Italy their first ever win over the home side on English soil.
As a manager, Capello has won everything. An incredibly successful manager, Capello was the first of a new breed of managers who have honed their skills in the top management schools in Italy and abroad. In his first five seasons at the helm of AC Milan (he’d managed them very, very briefly before the arrival of Sacchi, but only for a game or two), he took a team which was considered finished, soon-to-be orphaned of Van Basten and with Gullit and Rijkaard on the wane and proceeded to win 4 Serie A titles and the Champions League twice.
His relationship with the suits at Milan became tense and he took over at Real Madrid. In his solitary year there, Capello did what is still considered a minor miracle: He guided an underachieving (for years) team and won the Liga title. In the meantime, Milan fell apart and the following year, ‘Don’ Capello (as the Spanish, in respect, had begun to call him) returned to the ‘rossoneri’. This was to be his only mistake in a glittering career: Milan were in need of a total re-build (which Zaccheroni subsequently did) and Capello’s ability and charisma simply wasn’t enough to save the sinking ship. His next employment was with AS Roma, a huge club which had (almost) always underachieved due to the disruption in the environment surrounding the club. Again, Capello sorted the squad out and in his time there, won the Serie A title (only the 3rd in Roma’s history) and kept his team near the top in the other years (the most difficult one being the one immediately after the Serie A triumph). Last season Roma came 2nd and pushed a record-breaking Milan team all the way to the wire.
A mere matter of months ago, Capello proclaimed that he’d never manage Juventus (arch enemies of Roma), since he didn’t like the managerial (suits) set up at the club one bit. In the major shock of the 2004/2005 pre-season, Capello was appointed manager. In pre-season, Juventus fans booed the new manager and they are going to be a difficult bunch to appease, given that Capello is still widely regarded as an enemy.


The First XI should line up as follows:

Buffon

Zebina – Thuram – Cannavaro – Zambrotta

Olivera – Blasi – Emerson – Nedved

Trezeguet – Del Piero


Looking at that team, it is difficult to pick holes and Juventus are rightly regarded by the media and pundits as being in with an excellent chance of winning silverware in the coming campaign.

Buffon is, quite simply, the best goalkeeper in the world. Does, on occasion, make mistakes, but overall his value to the side is incalculable. Known in footballing circles as the ‘Maradona of goalkeepers’, he really is something special and although he’s been around for ages (became Parma’s first choice keeper at 17 years of age), he’s still only 26.

The defence is strong, very. It needs to be, since last season it uncharacteristically shipped 42 league goals, the highest total since the ‘60s. In came Zebina (on a Bosman free from Roma), who can play anywhere across the defence and has been in splendid form so far (friendlies and Champions League qualification) to line up alongside the likes of Thuram and Zambrotta, the latter of which is probably currently the best all round Italian footballer. Zambrotta is a right-sided midfielder, but his versatility is such that he can play on the left and can do a job in defence as well as in midfield. Necessity dictates that for both Juve and the national side, Zambrotta plays mainly at left back. Right at the end of the transfer window, Juventus pulled off a fantastic couple of transfers, one of which saw Cannavaro, captain of the national side, move to Turin in exchange for Uruguay keeper Carini: A straight swap, unbelievably. Cannavaro has been plagued by injuries over the last season or so, but at 31 is now in tip top condition and will renew the defensive wall that he formed with Thuram and Buffon at Parma five or so years ago. An excellent acquisition. If the midfield provide the right sort of protection, this defence is going to be very hard indeed to break down. I’d put it on a par with Milan’s and the back up players are quality, too (Birindelli, Tudor, the stalwart Ferrara, the hardman Montero and Pessotto for the left flank).

Speaking of the midfield, young Uruguay player Olivera has returned to the fold after a year out on loan and looks to have matured into quite a player in his outings so far this term. He can play up front, but is probably most comfortable out on the right wing. Italy winger Camoranesi is a quality back up and the fight for that berth, when Capello picks a four man midfield, will be an interesting one. Blasi, described by his manager Prandelli at Parma as the ‘white Davids’, is a young player who has returned from loan and will provide the midfield with the zest that has been missing since the club made the mistake of letting Davids move on. Out on the left, the current France Football Player of the Year, Czech Pavel Nedved, is about as good a player as you can get. When fit (he picked up an awkward injury during Euro 2004) and on form, Nedved is an awesome player. In his role, there is quite simply no one better, anywhere. This neatly brings us to the major midfield purchase during the last transfer window: Emerson. In a delicate, sometimes vitriolic, transfer from bitter rivals AS Roma (Emerson refused to return to Italy until they sanctioned his transfer, presenting his former club with medical certificates to show that he was in a state of depression), Juventus finally got their man. Emerson is a huge influence on any team he plays for. A superb midfielder who gets absolutely everywhere and literally runs the show. With him, Nedved and Blasi in the middle, there really isn’t a chink in that department’s armour. My only doubt regards the quality of the back up players: The likes of Tacchinardi, Appiah and Kapo are good players, but they’re not up to the standard of the Milan second choices. Serie A is 38 games long starting this season, whilst Juventus are through to the group stage of the Champions League, a competition which, as I’ve already stated, they are desperate to win.

The forward line, when fit and on form, is stunning: Del Piero, Trezeguet and Ibrahimovic are players who will guarantee quality performances. Unfortunately, both Del Piero and Trezeguet have been known to suffer injuries more often than they would have liked and Del Piero in particular takes a long time to get back to any sort of form. Ibrahimovic was a last gasp purchase before the transfer window slammed shut and although I can’t see him in the starting XI (unless Capello decides to play a three-pronged attack, which I doubt, especially in the bigger matches), he’s a lad with an awful lot of potential and skills which a stint at Ajax will have brought along nicely. Weak link is Zalayeta as 4th choice striker. The big man from Uruguay simply isn’t a player I’d expect to see in a Juventus shirt. He’s good, but he’s not good enough, which is why I was very surprised to see Miccoli leave Turin for Florence and a year (at least) with Fiorentina. The main reason for this is that Miccoli and Del Piero are incompatible: They simply can’t be played together, being far too similar. I think perhaps Juve have let the wrong one of them leave, however odd that may sound, since we’re talking about the star Del Piero.

A piece about Juventus can’t be written without mention of their Director of Football (‘Direttore Sportivo’), the all seeing, all-controlling, omnipotent Luciano Moggi. This 67 year old wheeler-dealer has a finger in every pie, he rules the transfer market as if he were a monarch and his web of intricate deals is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. He’ll buy a player just because he knows that a club who have someone that Juve are interested in would like to have that player…then he’ll offer said player in a part exchange deal, or loan.
Even on television (he’s as well known as any player, even the most famous), Moggi will openly lie about the players he’s interested in, laugh off (he has a dry, ‘friendly’ sense of humour) facts which everyone knows to be true, mislead pundits and rival Directors of Football on purpose and, in general, put on a show which wouldn’t make him look out of place next to Al Pacino and Robert Duval in a sequel to the famous Godfather trilogy.
Moggi also did something no one would have dared to do…no one except him: He lied to the late, great Gianni Agnelli (head of the powerful family of industrialists, President of Fiat, honourary President of Juventus, Senator in the Roman Parliament) about the sale of Zidane denying any deal with real Madrid right up until the last minute, whilst knowing all along that the French superstar was on his way.
You simply didn’t lie to Gianni Agnelli. That really brough home the power wielded by Moggi and he is rightly revered by everyone in the game. Journalists are in awe of the man and his reputation for building world class squads is second to none.
All this is done whilst keeping a very firm eye on the balance sheet: Last year was the first time Juventus posted a loss (nothing major, less than £10m) in at least 6 or 7 years and the thanks is down to one man, Luciano Moggi.

Juventus came third last season and runners up in the Italian Cup (a disappointing campaign by their standards), after having won the Serie A title twice on the trot in the previous two years (also ending up as runners up in the Champions League, to rivals AC Milan, in 2003).

If Juventus can steer clear of injuries, I can see them doing very well both at home and abroad. What sets them apart from other teams is their mentality: They consider it their right to be at the top and won’t ever settle for second best.
Whether their mentality and the depth of their squad will be enough to get the better of AC Milan in the race for the 2004/05 title is something that we’ll have to wait and see: They’ve certainly got the right manager and their fair share of Tier 1 players.


Trophy Cabinet


League Titles

27 times Serie A champions:

1905, 1925/1926, 1930/1931, 1931/1932, 1932/1933, 1933/1934, 1934/1935, 1949/1950, 1951/1952, 1957/1958, 1959/1960, 1960/1961, 1966/1967, 1971/1972, 1972/1973, 1974/1975, 1976/1977, 1977/1978, 1980/1981, 1981/1982, 1983/1984, 1985/1986, 1994/1995, 1996/1997, 1997/1998, 2001/2002, 2002/2003


Italian Cup

9, in the seasons:

1937/1938, 1941/1942, 1958/1959, 1959/1960, 1964/1965, 1978/1979, 1982/1983, 1989/1990, 1994/1995


Italian Supercup (Community Sheild equivalent, a quite recent competition in Italy)

4, in the years:

1995, 1997, 2002, 2003


European Cup/Champions League

2, in the seasons:

1984/1985, 1995/1996


Intercontinental Cup

2, in the years:

1985, 1996


European Supercup

2, in the years:

1984, 1996


Cup Winners’ Cup

1983/1984


Cup Winners’ Cup

3, in the seasons:

1976/1977, 1989/1990, 1992/1993

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