Juve, Milan and others said goodbye to key players and staff but struggling clubs are still battling not to say so long to Serie A“No more tears, I’ve shed enough already,” insisted Massimiliano Allegri on Saturday. Nobody in the audience was fooled. Juventus had announced one day previously that his time as manager was coming to a close. Allegri could scarcely get through the first sentence of a press conference called to honour his achievements before he had to break off into a hum as he fought to compose himself.There was no such attempt to hold back the emotion one day later, as he stood and hugged Andrea Barzagli for what felt like an eternity in front of the dugouts...
Frenkie de Jong is unlikely to be the last of this team to depart in the summer after their Champions League exploits“Every year one or two big names leave,” acknowledged Michael van Praag, the Ajax president, in March 1997. “It is sad, especially for me. But we are used to it. There is absolutely no panic.” More than two decades on from the last time the four-times European Cup winners reached the semi-finals, the faces may have changed but there is still no hiding from the bald truth in the Ajax boardroom. Their chief executive, Edwin van der Sar – the goalkeeper in the famous 1995 Champions League final victory against Milan and in the defeat to Juventus 12 months...
Juventus’s teenage forward continues to suggest he is less the new Mario Balotelli than a successor to Cristiano Ronaldo, and his Juve teammate seems to be an admirerLet’s talk about Moise Kean. Not about the cretins who racially abused him, nor teammates who should have supported him better. Let’s talk about a teenager who has scored in five consecutive matches for club and country. Let’s talk about a player who is averaging one goal for every 47 minutes he has spent on the pitch in Serie A this season.Kean was at it again on Saturday, stepping off the bench to hit the winner for Juventus at home against Milan. The Bianconeri stand on the brink of an eighth consecutive Scudetto,...
The Juventus captain’s claim that teammate Moise Kean shared the blame for monkey chants aimed at him against Cagliari felt staggeringly ill-judgedMassimiliano Allegri explained his decision to leave Moise Kean out of the Juventus starting XI that faced Empoli over the weekend as a move to protect the player. “My challenge is to understand when he’ll recover from this crush that the media has on him right now,” said the manager. “If he doesn’t touch the ball in the next game, they’ll make him into a donkey.”Kean came off the bench instead, scoring the game’s only goal with his first touch. Perhaps, after that, Allegri accepted that this hype train was already running beyond his control. Or maybe Juventus simply...
Cristiano Ronaldo’s best performance for Juve in the Champions League, against Atlético, embodied our club’s ‘until the end’ motto – and the men can now go on to win itThe Juventus motto is “fino alla fine” – in other words, until the end. On Tuesday evening the men’s team proved these words are not empty but alive. Juve aspire to be a team who never give up, a team who burn with an indefatigable spirit, and this week it was there for all to see. Related: Cristiano Ronaldo: the king of Europe who has normalised the abnormal The following night, inspired and motivated by the performance of the men’s team, we won 2-1 at Milan in the Coppa Italia semi-final...