88_02_PREVIEW

WE ALL FOLLOW • JUVENTUS
AS HE SURVEYED the wreckage of Juventus’s
5-0 aggregate demolition of Celtic in the
Champions League last February, the veteran
Italian sportswriter Alessandro Vocalelli found
himself entertaining a provocative thought.
“Are we sure, are you sure, that Barcelona’s
midfield, the engine of the top team in Europe,
is really better than Juve’s?” he asked in his
column for the newspaper La Repubblica.
“My personal sensation is that the Bianconeri
midfielders have nothing to envy from their
Spanish counterparts.”
Many people scoffed at the thought. Even
more might do so today, after Juve failed to
qualify for the knockout stage of this season’s
Champions League, while Barcelona cruised
through with ease. But the Italian club’s continental
failure had more to do with inefficiency
up front than with any weakness in the middle
of the park. It was a midfielder, Arturo Vidal,
1897
< 1905 >
Juventus win their first
Campionato Italiano di Calcio
(Italian league title), triumphing
over Genoa and U.S. Milanese
in a three-way final.
< 1897 >
Pupils from the Massimo
d’Azeglio school found Sport-
Club Juventus. The teenagers
regularly meet at a bench on
Corso Re Umberto, united by
their passion for the game.
Their first jerseys were pink
with a black tie or bow tie, the
uniform they wear during gym
class at school.
KEY
Notable
Event
< 1897 >
Juventus’s first
field is at Piazza
d’Armi.
< 1906 >
First Juventus president
Alfredo Dick leaves the
club with several prominent
foreign players after a series
Death
1904 1911 1918 1925 1931
< 1903 >
When Juventus need to
replace their faded pink
jerseys, John Savage
(an English expat and member
of the club) contacts a friend
who supports Notts County.
The club receives a set in
bianconero (black and white).
< 1913 >
Carlo Bigatto is the first
club captain in Juventus’s
history. The midfielder
spends 17 years with the
Bianconeri—a record later
surpassed by Alessandro
Del Piero. He is remembered
for being a great
athlete and also for his
distinctive hat.
< 1920 >
Goalkeeper Giovanni
Giacone becomes the
first Juventus player to
represent Italy. Defenders
Osvaldo Novo and
Antonio Bruna also play
for the Azzurri shortly
afterward.
Scandal
$
Investment
Lineup
Change
< 1925 >
Hungarian Ferenc
Hirzer is the first
foreign player to
join Juventus. He
is brought in by
fellow countryman
Károly. The
inside left plays an
integral part in the
Bianconeri’s first
Italian Championship
victory in
over 20 years. He
has a curious habit
of keeping a comb
in his socks so
he can groom his
blond curls during
games.
Trophy
< 1922 >
Federico
Munerati, the
10th all-time
goal scorer
with 114 goals,
and the winner
of four
Serie A medals
is signed.
< 1926 >
Juventus win their second
Italian title (Scudetto) with a
resounding victory over two
legs against Alba di Roma in
the finalissima.
< 1931 >
Juventus win
their third
Serie A title.
< 1930 >
Giovanni Ferrari
The winner of eight
Scudetti, he’s on the
Italian World Cup–
winning teams in
1934 and 1938.
< 1928 >
Goalkeeper Umberto Caligaris
joins from Casale to create the
legendary defensive trio with
Gianpiero Combi and
Virginio Rosetta. They also regularly
play together for the Azzurri.
< 1929 >
of disputes. He creates a new
Renato Cesarini arrives from
34 11 < 1925 >
makes more than 200
who scored the majority of the team’s nine Pogba does not believe he has made it yet.
< 1915 >
Argentina. The agressive
12 35
team called Torino FC, which
Juventus manager Károly
appearances for the Bianconeri.
A notorious prankster,
spawns a rivalry known as
During World
midfielder is a force to be
dies of a heart attack.
the Derby della Mole between
War I,
reckoned with. He is
he allegedly steals an antique
the two clubs.
Canfari
naturalized to play for Italy miniature sailing ship from a
dies during
as an Argentine oriundo and Paris hotel where the team is
the third
wins five Scudetti as a player. staying but is forced to return
Battle of the
it to avoid a scandal.
Isonzo.
group-stage goals.
Such form helped earn the Chilean a new
contract in December, making him Juve’s
joint-best player on €4.5 million per year. And
yet even Vidal has not dominated the headlines
as thoroughly as teammate Paul Pogba
has in the past 18 months.
Just 20 years old, the French midfielder has
surprised his coaches with the speed of his ascent
from untested prospect to integral member
of Juve’s first-team squad. The Bianconeri
knew Pogba had potential when they spirited
him away from Manchester United in the summer
of 2012, but nobody expected him to play
60 games in his first season and a half in Italy.
In December he was honored with the
European Golden Boy award, a prize given
to the continent’s most impressive under-21
footballer, as voted on by an international
panel of journalists. Although the accolade
was conceived by the Turin-based newspaper
Tuttosport in 2003, this was the first time it
had ever been bestowed on a Juventus player.
Not that everyone expects Pogba to remain
with the Bianconeri for long. Club president
Andrea Agnelli provoked speculation about
the player’s future in October, during a speech
about the economic decline of Italian football.
“If I had to judge things from a player’s perspective,
I would say that Italy is no longer
a final destination but rather a transitory
one,” Agnelli told attendees at the Leaders in
Football conference in London. “I’m trying
to imagine what will happen in two or three
years’ time if we get an enormous offer for one
of the greatest talents we have today—Pogba. I
don’t know if we will be able to hold on to him.
Right now I think we don’t have the strength.”
The following day’s headlines were as predictable
as they were misleading. Gazzetta
dello Sport declared that the midfielder was
“on the market,” while Corriere dello Sport
attributed the phrase “Pogba can leave” to
Agnelli on its front page.
In fact, Juventus have no plans to sell anytime
soon. Of course, if an outlandish bid were
to arrive, then Agnelli would be duty-bound
to consider it. Every player has a price, and
even Zinedine Zidane was sold for roughly
$100 million back in 2001.
For now, Agnelli is more interested in extending
Pogba’s contract, which runs through
2016. He is reportedly willing to more than
double the player’s wages to a potential
€4 million per year once all bonuses are
factored in. The midfielder himself, meanwhile,
has hardly given the impression he is
desperate to get away.
“Serie A is the university of football, especially
from a tactical standpoint,” Pogba told
Gazzetta dello Sport in an interview published
a day before Agnelli’s speech. “A midfielder
who can make it in Italy can truly aim to become
the best in the world at his job.”
He described himself to Gazzetta dello Sport
as a “nobody” who had achieved “precisely
nothing” so far in his career. And if Serie A is
indeed the university that he suggests, then he
is also aware that he has landed himself with
some of the best professors in the business.
Who were his points of reference at Juventus?
He named his midfield colleagues Arturo
Vidal, Andrea Pirlo, and Claudio Marchisio.
“In every training session I try to take something
from them,” he said. “I would achieve
perfection if I could have Claudio’s technique,
Arturo’s aggression, and the brilliant clean
passing of Andrea.”
For all the quality elsewhere in Juventus’s
starting 11, from the enduring excellence of
Gigi Buffon in goal through to the craft and
cunning of Carlos Tévez up front, there is no
question that this team’s greatest strength
lies in the midfield. With the exception of
CONTINUED ON P. 112 →
It all began innocently
enough with a few teenagers
and a bench in Turin.
In 116 years, hundreds of
players have pulled on the
legendary black and white
stripes. Triumph, scandal,
and tragedy are never too
far away from Juventus.
The “Old Lady” manages to
be both the most adored
and hated football club
in Italy. Dylan Fahy
highlights the most
notable moments in a
momentous history.
(back to the future)
BIANCO-
NERI
< 1898 >
Enrico Canfari
is one of the 13
founders, along
with his brother
Eugenio. He is club
president from
1898 to 1901.
< 1900 >
Now known as Football Club
Juventus, they enter the
third Campionato Federale
di Football. The competition
is made up of six teams from
northwestern Italy.
< 1922 >
Goalkeeper
Gianpiero
Combi plays for
the club for 14
years. He makes
his Serie A
debut at age 19.
< 1923 >
Hungarian Jenő Károly
becomes Juventus’s first
professional manager and
lays the foundations for the
club to become a major force
in Italian football.
< 1924 >
Virginio Rosetta’s transfer
from Pro Vercelli provokes
outrage as Juventus are
alleged to have “tapped”
him up. The move is
deemed illegal by the
Italian Football Association,
and the Bianconeri are
docked points. The incident
is Italian football’s first scandal.
Eventually the transfer
is completed, and Rosetta
goes on to play 338 games.
1929
< 1923 >
Edoardo Agnelli is
elected president of
Juventus. The son of the
founder of Italian automobile
manufacturer Fiat
builds the club its first
proper stadium on Corso
Marsiglia.
< 1928 >
Mario Varglien (right)
and Giovanni Varglien, the
Croatian-born brothers, win
five Serie A titles. Mario is
a member of Italy’s 1934
World Cup–winning team.
< 1929 >
Scottish
manager
William
Aitken
guides
Juventus to
a third-place
finish in the
first girone
all’italiana
(Italian-style
circuit).
$
< 1926 >
József
Viola is
appointed
Juventus
manager.
GIUSEPPE GIRIODI ANTONIO BRUNA GIUSEPPE GRABBI ORESTE BARALE
< 1930 >
Carlo
Carcano
becomes
manager. Under
his guidance, the
club commences
an era known as
the quinquennio
d’oro (five years of
gold), in which it
becomes the first
team in Italian
history to win five
consecutive
Serie A titles.
< 1931 >
Luis Monti, a robust defensive
midfielder, also arrives from
Argentina. He becomes
known as L’Armadio a Due
Ante (the Cabinet with Two
Doors) for his physicality and
No.1
LEGENDS
RAIMUNDO ORSI
The left winger makes up for what
he lacks in physical prowess with
lightning speed and clinical precision
in front of goal. The Agnelli
family allegedly scouts him at the
Olympic Games in Amsterdam, and
he lands in Turin from Argentina’s
Independiente in 1928. Mumo
instantly assimilates into the setup
and is naturalized to represent
Italy, becoming one of the Azzurri’s
longest-serving oriundi. In more
than 175 appearances, Orsi nets on
a respectable 77 occasions.