http://www.youtube.com/v/wB4Ie4H4KMQWhy Juve title is a triumph for three underdogs
The Old Lady is back on top of Italian football - but this time she's done it with team spirit and a trio of fairytale stories
Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon celebrates with fans
AP
Campioni d’Italia! Campioni d’Italia! Juventus are the champions of Italy and what a journey it’s been for the Old Lady, who for six years suffered torment as she lost her superiority and acclimatised to mediocrity.
This is the story of a European giant that fell in spectacular fashion and for years, appeared incapable of getting back up. Countless management changes took place, seven different coaches presided over the first team since 2006 and players were constantly bought and sold. There was no cohesion, no winning mentality and no Stile Juve – the philosophy of simplicity, professionalism and calm instilled by Edoardo Agnelli during his stint as president in the late 1920s.
In the air tonight: Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini celebrates
AP
Seventh place for two consecutive campaigns had fans attempting to set fire to a section of the old Stadio Olimpico last season but this had to be their season. This was Alessandro Del Piero’s last year, the year the Juventus Stadium opened its doors and the year Antonio Conte returned home.
Playing an exciting brand of attacking football that focused on possession, accurate passing and in Conte’s own words, "head, heart and legs", the Old Lady dazzled her way back to the helm of Serie A.
“I would have liked to have played in this squad,” said a smiling Gianluca Vialli. “There’s great rhythm, great intensity. So many playable balls!” The fact that Juventus have so far remained undefeated with only one game left is a testament to their capability in overcoming their opponents and much of that is down to their team unity and collective spirit.
Fan-tastic: Juventus supporters celebrate winning Serie A
Getty
They have no fuoriclasse, as they say in Italian - an unrivalled player, champion at the top of his game who will score them an endless amount of goals a la Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Instead Juventus have had 18 different goal-scorers this season – the team is their fuoriclasse.
The most beautiful aspect of their game is their work off the ball. They can play through the middle, out wide, horizontally or on the counter. They have a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C. On average they have taken more shots on goal per game than any other squad in Europe’s top five leagues. This is a side that loves to attack and do so at will, secure in the knowledge that they boast Europe’s stingiest defence. Their only weakness lies in the absence of a natural goalscorer capable of finishing the many chances created, hence their many draws - 15 in total, seven more than second-placed Milan.
However, rarely have we seen a side so deserving of the title. Beautiful football combined with a burning desire to return to greatness. This is a special team with a special story, worthy of this very special title – their 30th though officially only their 28th as they had two league championships stripped because of the Calciopoli scandal.
Within this sporting fairytale stories lies countless personal ones. Like that of Emanuele Giaccherini who only four years ago was driving his Fiesta to Cesena FC, a Lega Pro (third division) side at the time. The attacking midfielder knew this was his last chance before accepting his fate as a labourer. Giaccherini, once an undersized boy who suffered a ruptured spleen and whose mother complained of him ‘breaking everything in his body’, overcame all obstacles to help Juve win the title, four years after he nearly gave up on his dream.
Masked ball: Leonardo Bonucci (right) celebrates with Marco Borriello
Reuters
Then there’s the story of Leonardo Bonucci. A lifelong Juventus fan whose miserable performances last season and at the start of this one had fans campaigning to get rid of him. Luckily, he had Conte in his corner and in these last few months has been a revelation, rescuing Juve countless times.
But in the eyes of former Bianconero player Moreno Torricelli, it’s Paolo De Ceglie who truly symbolises the new and improved Juventus - a player who has always been good but lacked the personality to make the final jump to become truly great. Now Torricelli says: “I see a player that’s tough, very strong and fearless.”
Full credit must go to Conte, who built a championship-winning side and laid the foundations of a winning cycle. One should expect nothing less from a man who was captain of the great Marcello Lippi-led Juventus side and part of the Italian national team that reached the World Cup final in 1994 under the God of tactics, Arrigo Sacchi.
On the way to glory: Mirko Vucinic scores past Cagliari goalkeeper Michael Agazzi
AP
A consistent winner, his obsession with tactics has seen him deploy five different formations this season and has been successful with all his tested formulas. Modern in his approach, he meticulously studies his opponents and adapts his team so as to expose the weaknesses of his adversaries while simultaneously exploiting the strengths of his own players.
Aside from tactics, as La Repubblica’s Emanuele Gamba noted, Conte has also studied communication, psychology and physiology so as to transmit his ideals perfectly, prepare effective training schedules, limit injuries and keep the side motivated and focused for the entirety of the season. He has brought back the Juve arrogance, their willingness to fight, to sneer and to challenge. They’re back to being hated and that’s how they like it.
Luck has also played a part. Juventus were free from all European commitments to challenge for the title against the likes of Milan, who suffered deeply from injuries, Inter who are in a transitional phase and a Napoli side committed to success in Europe.
Nonetheless, few will deny them their deserved moment and Italy awaits to see whether they can really write history by remaining undefeated and securing their 10th Coppa Italia victory. Who said Italian football isn’t exciting?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/football-opinion/juventus-serie-a-title-is-a-triumph-for-underdogs-823599------------
Unbeaten Juventus scale the barriers to be crowned champions again
There was pandemonium in Trieste and amid the chaos Juve's manager Antonio Conte savoured a title he had masterminded
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The Juventus head coach Antonio Conte, right, celebrates after his unbeaten Juventus seal the Scudetto. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
They began to scale the barriers around the pitch long before the final whistle blew. Six long years these fans had waited to see Juventus return to the pinnacle of Italian football, yet as time ticked down at Trieste's Stadio Nereo Rocco the thought of having to delay festivities for even one more second was becoming too much. After all the false dawns, the setbacks, the controversies and the collapses since Calciopoli they just wanted it to be over. They wanted to celebrate a Scudetto once more.
Confirmation that this title was theirs had arrived roughly three minutes before full time, as word filtered through that Maicon had given Internazionale a 4-2 lead in the Milan derby. Few will have fully comprehended the drama unfolding at San Siro, where the Brazilian's jaw-dropping strike from outside the box provided a fitting conclusion to Serie A's barmiest and most entertaining fixture of the season. None will have cared. All that mattered was that victories for both Inter and Juve – 2-0 up against Cagliari – now seemed assured. Those results would make the Bianconeri champions.
The final whistle unleashed pandemonium in Trieste. Although this was technically an away game for Juventus, they were playing at a venue which is far closer to Turin than to Cagliari's true home in Sardinia – the Isolani having temporarily relocated after their owner Massimo Cellino lost patience with the shabby state of the communally owned Stadio Sant'Elia. In a crowd of roughly 16,000 on Sunday night, Juventus's fans outnumbered those of their nominal hosts by a ratio of 15 to one.
Those supporters pouring on to the pitch quickly outnumbered Juventus's players by many times that figure. Giorgio Chiellini was mobbed, the player's face a mixture of delirium and faint concern as they launched him, shirtless, time and again into the night sky. In among the madness, a group of fans made off with a camera belonging to Italy's Sky Sport. Others simply stood on the field and held their banners aloft. One bore a picture of the captain, Alessandro Del Piero, along with the simple message: "Thank you for existing".
Juventus's players eventually retreated to their dressing room. It was some time before stewards were able to clear out the tunnel of fans and create enough space on the pitch for them to re-emerge and toast their triumph properly – with bottles of champagne bearing the number 30. This will be officially recorded as Juventus's 28th title, but the club continues to reject the Calciopoli verdicts which stripped them of their 2005 and 2006 Scudetti.
That much was affirmed – lest the bottles had not been clear enough – by the club's sporting director, Beppe Marotta, at full time, when he said that the club did indeed intend to add a third golden star to the badge on their shirts. The manager, Antonio Conte, had sought to sidestep the issue when he was pressed by reporters at full time, saying: "What number Scudetto is this? Number one, because it's the first I've won as a manager."
If debates over Juventus's third star are certain to rage on for months and years then Conte would prefer it if they could at least be put on hold for a few days, so this success can be celebrated in its own right. Not only have his team claimed their first piece of major silverware since Calciopoli, but they also stand one game away from an unbeaten season. Only two teams have previously achieved such a feat in Serie A – Perugia, who still didn't win the league, in 1978-79 and Milan in 1991-92. Neither was in a 38-game season.
Juventus's performance in their first campaign under Conte has gone far beyond what anyone could have imagined for a team who had finished seventh in each of their last two seasons. With one game still to play, they have already collected 23 points more than they managed in total last season. They have also reached the final of the Coppa Italia, where they will face Napoli in two weeks' time.
There is plenty of credit to go around. The signing of Andrea Pirlo on a free transfer following his release by Milan will go down as one of the most brilliant pieces of business ever conducted by the club – and one of the Rossoneri's most boneheaded. If the true picture is a little more nuanced, the player not having produced consistent performances of this calibre for some time before his departure from Milan, then his importance to Juventus is undeniable. His 13 assists lead the division.
Pirlo was not the only astute signing made by Juventus last summer, though, his fellow midfielder Arturo Vidal arriving from Bayer Leverkusen for €10.5m and going on to become the team's key ball-winner, winning more tackles per game (5.4) than anyone else in the division. Mirko Vucinic, signed for €15m from Roma, drove fans to distraction with his selfishness in possession and tendency to disappear from games, yet also scored a string of crucial goals. His was the strike which set Juventus on the way to victory after just six minutes on Sunday.
More than any player, many feel that the key upgrade made last summer might just have been the opening of Juventus Stadium. Pirlo, upon playing in the venue for the first time, expressed the belief that it would be even more intimidating for opposing teams than a packed San Siro – on account of the close "English-style" stands which placed supporters right on top of the pitch. Juventus have collected six more points at home this season than Milan.
But the true star of the show has undoubtedly been Conte himself. The manager arrived with only a modest CV – he had taken each of Bari and Siena up from Serie B, with an unsuccessful spell at Atalanta inbetween – but the full backing of supporters who believed that as a former captain he would appreciate the significance of the role. He arrived declaring this team "must get used to using the word Scudetto again", then promptly refused to acknowledge reporters' suggestions that his team even had a shot at the title until the final two months of the season.
Conte was similarly swift in dropping his commitment to the 4-2-4 which had served him so well thus far in his managerial career. He had expressed reservations to the board about the signing of Pirlo specifically because the player did not fit the holding midfielder mould required for such a formation, but rather than force square pegs into round holes, he subsequently adjusted his approach. By developing different variations on 4-3-3 and then later 3-5-2 he was able to not only get the best out of his squad but give himself different options to combat varied opponents.
While the whole squad embraced his ideals of possession football and a relentless high pressing game – with the exception of one or two high-profile players who subsequently found themselves marginalised – his greatest achievements were in the defensive phase. Stephan Lichtsteiner was the only significant addition made to a backline that conceded 47 goals last year, yet this season under Conte Juventus have allowed only 19 – 13 fewer than anyone else in the division. The clean sheet against Cagliari was their 21st of the season – a club record.
That was a tribute to the renewed form of Gigi Buffon but also the manager, whose faith in Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli at centre-back was such that he was prepared to even ask Chiellini to play out on the left. Each responded with one of the best seasons of their careers, Bonucci proving himself adept not only as a defender but also a distributor of the ball who could help launch his team onto another offensive.
Throughout the campaign, the one knock on this Juventus team was the claim that they did not possess a match-winner such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic who could beat teams on his own even when the rest were performing poorly. Time and again the Swede has dug Milan out of a hole, scoring more league goals (28) than he has ever before in a single season. And yet this is the first season in which Ibrahimovic has failed to finish top of his domestic league since 2003.
In the final analysis, Juventus did not need a fuoriclasse like Ibra in their starting XI. They already had one picking the team.
Talking points
• So, that derby. Six goals; three penalties – one the result of an absolutely scandalous decision; Júlio César squaring up to Zlatan Ibrahimovic after the award of said penalty and telling him that he was going to miss, before sticking his tongue out and making all manner of bizarre facial expressions; Ibrahimovic then sticking a perfectly struck penalty past César; a 40-yard volley from Wesley Sneijder that had to be pushed out from under the bar; that goal from Maicon … oh, and yet more stunning choreography at San Siro: from Milan's supporters poking fun – "Seeing you in May is to see another mirage" – to Inter's incredible depiction of the Madonnina that covered an entire stand. The quality may have been mixed – some of the defending, on both sides, was atrocious – but the entertainment was exceptional. All this with a title on the line. What more could you want from a derby?
• This was, incidentally, Massimiliano Allegri's fifth derby in charge of Milan – and in every one he has faced a different Inter manager. The chances of Andrea Stramaccioni hanging around long enough for the next one appear to be increasing rapidly, with the owner Massimo Moratti telling reporters: "I think he can continue [in the job]". It feels deserved – the team having collected 17 points in eight matches since he arrived, when they had just 41 from 29 before he arrived. The players, also, appear to be on board. "We hope we can continue with him," said Diego Milito – whose hat-trick took his personal tally to eight goals in as many Milan derbies. "We are working well."
• If an expectation has too often existed in Serie A that teams with nothing left to play for not only could but should roll over in their remaining games, then there have certainly been plenty prepared to buck the trend this season. After Parma dealt Inter's Champions League hopes a blow in the previous round of fixtures, this weekend it was Bologna who knocked Napoli off course with a 2-0 win. Udinese – aided by two red cards dealt to their opponents Genoa – were able to stay on course, moving three points clear of both Napoli and Inter and staying two ahead of Lazio, who won at Atalanta. All four teams can still claim fourth with the right combination of results, but Udinese are the clear favourites –needing just a draw in their final game away to Catania to secure third. It would be hard to overstate the achievement of manager Francesco Guidolin should they succeed.
• The one dampener for Udinese was the suggestion from their captain and leading scorer Antonio Di Natale that this may be his last season. "I'm going to play in the European Championships and then stop," was his brief, unqualified comment to reporters at full-time – and while further clarification is required, it is not unthinkable that he could be considering stepping away from the game at 34. A long-term knee condition has long obliged him to undergo almost constant physio between games, and he expressed concern following the on-pitch death of Livorno's Piermario Morosini – a close friend of his – about how many games footballers were now being made to play.
• Not a bad weekend for goals, this one. Beyond Maicon's strike, highlights included Lorik Cana's violent top-corner finish for Lazio, and Sebastian Giovinco's looping 25-yard volley against Siena.
• At the bottom of the table, Lecce's hopes of survival took another blow with a 1-0 defeat at home to Fiorentina, though Genoa's loss the next day means they are still technically able to escape relegation should they win, and the Grifone lose, next week. Encouraging, given the recent climate in Serie A, were the warm send-offs that fans of both Lecce and the already relegated fans gave to their teams, with applause and chants of support at full-time.
• And finally … Only in a week like this could a match like Palermo 4-4 Chievo wind up as an afterthought.
Results: Atalanta 0-2 Lazio, Bologna 2-0 Napoli, Cagliari 0 - 2 Juventus, Inter 4-2 Milan, Lecce 0-1 Fiorentina, Novara 3-0 Cesena, Palermo 4-4 Chievo, Roma 2-2 Catania, Siena 0-2 Parma,
Udinese 2-0 Genoa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/may/07/juventus-win-serie-a-title-milan