Never before in this era of domestic domination have they established sole possession of first place so early in a campaignTime to release the confetti, pass out the champagne and discover what clunky social media pun Juventus have planned to follow on from #Le6end and #My7th. The Bianconeri are champions of Italy for the eighth consecutive year. Or so you might think, thumbing through some of the coverage of a weekend when they moved two points clear at the top.“There is no anti-Juve,” declared the front page of Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday. Inside the pink paper, Sebastiano Vernazza lamented: “Serie A seems to have become a close relative of the Belorussian league, where Bate Borisov have won for 12...
To pay such a sum for a player surely past his peak seems a risk but the Italian champions have not made many mistakes latelyCristiano Ronaldo described it in matter-of-fact terms as “the moment to begin a new cycle”. In Italy the headline writers went a little bigger as they hailed Juventus’s capture of the Portugal forward as “the deal of the century”.Even the club’s most optimistic supporters might not have dreamed such a thing possible at the start of this summer. A five-times Ballon d’Or winner coming to Turin? No Serie A player had even finished among the top three vote winners for that award since Kaká won it in 2007. Related: Cristiano Ronaldo joining Juventus in €100m deal...
The all-conquering Old Lady has no plans to abdicate her throne even with the inevitable summer changes aheadLast May, the commemorative T-shirts celebrated a “Le6end”. This year, Juventus went with “My7h”. Even as players popped champagne corks for the second time in four days at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, it was tempting to imagine a marketing team somewhere planning the slogans and hashtags for the next round of celebrations in 12 months.Seven consecutive Scudetti. No club had even won six in a row before the Bianconeri embarked on their present run. Across Europe’s top five leagues, only Lyon, at the start of this century, have enjoyed such an uninterrupted spell of domestic dominance. Even then, they did not pair Ligue 1...
Goalkeepers are transferred for less and paid less. Is it time football finally valued them relative to outfield players?So arrivederci then, Gianluigi Buffon. Assuming there is no careering handbrake turn away from retirement, the match against Verona on Sunday will prove his last. It seems vaguely astonishing that he made his debut in 1995 – a teenage action hero clad in pink and black for Parma, fearlessly facing down George Weah, Roberto Baggio and the rest of Milan’s all-stars. Nearly 900 games later, he will hang up his Puma One Grips having averaged a trophy for each year of his career.And along with a World Cup, Uefa Cup, five Italian Cups, six Italian Super Cups, a European Under-21 title and...
A fourth consecutive double is almost secured for Juve after a Coppa Italia final that featured redemption for Mehdi Benatia and despair for MilanA 4-0 victory to seal a fourth consecutive Coppa Italia. So absolute is Juventus’s domination of the domestic scene these days that they can apparently even afford themselves self-referential scorelines. No team had ever won so many consecutive editions of this tournament. Then again, that was already true last year.Milan were the opponents whose dreams they shattered this time at the Stadio Olimpico. Before kick-off you could take your pick of the storylines: from Leonardo Bonucci seeking to get one over on his former team to the duel-at-a-distance between a nation’s greatest goalkeeper, Gigi Buffon, and his...