The new Juventus Stadium had seen just fifteen minutes of official match play when, having had his own route to goal blocked by not one but two opposing players, Andrea Pirlo checked his run and almost without looking clipped a ball over the top of the static Parma backline. Floated perfectly, it dropped to the feet of Stephan Lichtsteiner who had cut in unnoticed from his position on the right. He controlled the ball with one foot before slotting past the helpless Antonio Mirante with the other, the ball settling into the back of the visitor’s goal. Their new home had its first competitive goal and Juventus had not only found a new hero but, finally, a quality right-back to fill the team’s most long-standing void.
Mister Gone: Credit Conte But Don’t Dismiss Delneri
Bewildered, disliked by the majority of supporters and looking ever more out of his depth, Gigi Delneri entered the press conference at the Vinovo training complex last May and informed the audience of reporters that his time in Turin had come to an end. “There will be a new Coach at Juventus next season,” declared the sixty-one year old in his heavy and notoriously difficult-to-understand Friulani accent, going on to add that he had been informed three days earlier, just after leading the club to what was the tenth defeat of the season the previous weekend.
After spending many years as a much derided and decidedly second rate competition, the Italian Cup has enjoyed a renaissance in recent seasons and, having ended the undefeated campaign of Serie A Champions Juventus, Napoli will be hoping it can do the same for then. Twenty-two years after their last triumph in the same competition, the San Paolo club may have finally begun to emerge from the lengthy shadow of Diego Maradona.
With a combination of good fortune and great play, they did what no other club has managed to this season and win against recently crowned Serie A Champions Juventus. Unbeaten in all competitions, the Turin giants finally succumbed in this, the Italian Cup Final, unable to thwart the advances of Napoli’s ‘Three Tenors’. It was a game which almost perfectly encapsulated everything these two teams have come to represent in a campaign from which both emerge with great credit.
The last time Juventus won the Coppa Italia (and did the double) back in 1995
Mariella Scirea opens her husband’s section of the new Juventus Museum
Team Analysis: Serie A Champions Juventus
Well, there it is. The Old Lady of Turin is back at the summit of Serie A, Champions of Italy for the first time in five years. After the hell of Calciopoli and the purgatory of a season spent in Serie B, Andrea Agnelli, Beppe Marotta and Fabio Paratici delivered the ingredients for a successful team and the intensity, drive and intelligence of Antonio Conte moulded them into exactly that. In winning the Scudetto in his debut season on the Juventus bench the 42 year old coach has followed in the footsteps of some true greats of the modern era, matching the feat accomplished by Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi and Giovanni Trapattoni.
It has quickly become the most televised fence in Italian football. Little more than eighteen months after Serbian supporters had scaled it, the security barrier at Genoa’s Luigi Ferraris stadium was the focus of attention this past weekend as the home fans decided enough was enough in what has admittedly been a disastrous season for the Ligurian side. Much like the Balkan crowd who caused that Euro 2012 qualifier with Italy to be abandoned, the Rossoblu faithful simply could take no more on an afternoon that had seen their team concede four goals without reply to a team battling relegation.
It felt like forever, but finally it came, falling from the sky like a gift from God. Roberto Baggio controlled the ball with a typically divine touch, floating past Edwin van der Sar before sending the ball into the back of the empty goal. For lowly Brescia to earn a point away to mighty Juventus in such fashion was, in itself, something of a miracle but this was so much more. This goal and – more importantly - the incredible pass which led to it, announced the arrival of Andrea Pirlo to a wider audience.
Proud Of Turin: Juventus and Torino Top The Bill (Again)
In the Italian language, ‘mole’ literally means size, often used to denote a building of lavish proportions and as such it is fitting that the derby encounter between the city’s two clubs derives its name from such a word. With its two clubs, Juventus and Torino, currently leading the top two divisions, Turin is once again becoming a major force in Italian football after spending recent years on the sidelines as Milan and Rome leapt ahead in terms of on-field success.
Back to work for Leo Bonucci, the latest Juventus player to don the mask
Perfect Tens: More Records For Totti & Del Piero
Having been overtaken by Milan following their win over Chievo on Tuesday evening, Juventus went into their game against Lazio knowing three points were essential if they were to continue to harbour any hope of ending their six year title drought. With the game tied at one-all despite having utterly dominated possession, they realised it was going to take something special to beat Federico Marchetti in the visitors goal as the keeper time and again denied their efforts.
Aside from among the Serie A aficionados, the name of Juventus left-back Paolo De Ceglie is unlikely to be a familiar one to many football fans. Yet the announcement, made via the Turin club’s official website recently that the 25 year old had signed a new contract raised an almost unanimous chorus of approval among the supporters of Italian football’s Old Lady. There is of course the usual clique of dissenting voices, as there are with almost every player at every club but, thanks to his form over the past eighteen months, De Ceglie enjoys an extremely high level of popularity among those who follow the Bianconeri.
Recent weeks and months have seen a real deterioration in the previously cordial relationship between this seasons leading protagonists in Serie A, Milan and Juventus. What that has done however, is take attention away from a match-up this coming weekend which, at many times over the past six years, has made the Real Madrid and Barcelona games look positively friendly. The rivalry will be renewed this Sunday when, for the first time, Inter visit the brand new Juventus Stadium in Turin for the 215th Derby d’Italia, a fixture which has decided title races, changed the history of the league and even caused a fist-fight in Parliament.
Italian football journalist, contributor to IBWM, SI.com, Calcio Italia magazine and ESPN Soccernet. Co-founder of JuventiKnows.com
Born in the year la Vecchia signora won her first International trophy, witness to the triumph and tragedy of Heysel, lo Scudetto di Fortunato, the glory of Rome, the pain of Calciopoli and the purgatory of Serie B.
