Dark Days for a Proud Club
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/mariana-rudan/blog/981397/Dark-days-for-a-proud-club
Once upon a time they were the team that everybody loved to hate, now we just feel sorry for them.”
This is how a colleague of mine recently described Italy’s most successful club, Juventus.
I couldn’t help but agree with him.
After watching Juve throw away a 3-0 lead to the then-bottom club Siena in Serie A, before being humiliated by Fulham a few days later in the Europa League, it was painfully clear that the once-mighty club is in a desperate state of decline.
So where did it all go wrong?
After spending squillions in the pre-season transfer market on Brazilian stars Felipe Melo and Diego, Juventus was tipped as the team most likely to trump Inter for the Scudetto. Back then, optimism engulfed the proud club and its revamped roster.
Now the outlook is bleak, as minnows like Siena and Livorno place bets in the dressing room to see who can score against Juve first.
The rot can be traced back to the infamous Calciopoli scandal of 2006, which sent the club to Serie B for the first time in its long history. An embarrassing period for everyone associated with the club, from which it is yet recover.
This season has brutally exposed what has long been considered the root of the problem: bad management, as summed up poetically by the popular Italian expression “Il Pesce Puzza dalla Testa” - the fish stinks from the head down.
If it wasn’t obvious in the turbulent 12 months surrounding Calciopoli, it certainly was in the board’s handling of Claudio Ranieri last season.
Ranieri, who is now orchestrating AS Roma’s stunning revival this season, was rumoured to have lost the confidence of the dressing room, namely David Trezeguet.
The board, under mounting pressure, sided with a petulant player well-past his best and showed the door to the man it had chosen to lead the club back to its glory days.
An early UEFA Champion’s League exit at the hands of Chelsea and a premature departure from the Coppa Italia were the board’s justification for what was a fait accompli.
In came Ciro Ferrara this season, the less experienced mentor, but one of the game’s nice guys.
But like Ranieri before him, Ferarra fell foul of a playing group that knows it can influence the club’s board. In this instance it was over-priced flop Diego who played a key role in sealing the coach’s fate.
A coach cannot be expected to achieve anything with players who know they can influence a board, which has proven itself weak in the face of internal crises.
Given the money that same board forked out in the pre-season, surely the blame must rest squarely on the shoulders of the men on the pitch.
“Juventus: Desperately Seeking Quality” was the title of an article in a leading Italian Sports newspaper this week, following the Round 29 loss to Sampdoria.
Forgetting for a moment the wads of cash forked out for a clutch of high-priced foreigners, this is a team that also contains seven members of the Italy national side.
Not surprisingly, two months out from a World Cup, the fans are worried.
As fragile as a little old lady – a fitting nickname given the circumstances – Juventus, by its own lofty standards, languishes in sixth spot, a whopping 18 points behind Inter Milan and struggling to stay in the reckoning for Europe.
A telling point in the second leg of the 5-4 aggregate UEL loss to Fulham demonstrated how tragic the situation has become and highlighted the disconnect between the pampered players and the fans they represent.
During the match, Johnathan Zebina gave the one finger salute to his own fans in a disgraceful act, despite his insistance that it was a response to racist provocation.
Whether Zebina's accusation is true or not, tension is running high at the troubled Old Lady and those same fans will demonstrate just how fed up they are with a rally at the home match against Atalanta this weekend: a match that the Juve of old would have romped home in, but in the current climate, has every chance of losing.