Juventus

With Thursday’s Europa League clash with Juventus in mind, MCB takes a look at Juventus, their players and takes in the build up to the game.

History

Juventus have suffered a serious fall from grace over the last few years, but are still the most successful club in Italian football. The club, founded in 1897, have spent their entire existence in the top flight of Serie A, with the exception of the 2006/07 season, when the club were found guilty of match fixing and relegated to Serie B.

Their first European trophy was The UEFA Cup in 1977, followed by their only success in the Cup Winners Cup seven years later in 1984. A year later, they became the first team to win all three European titles when they bet Liverpool in the European Cup. In total, Juventus have six European titles plus two UEFA Super Cups.

Domestically, Juve have 27 Serie A titles, their last coming in the 2002/03 season. In addition, they Coppa Italia nine times and four SuperCoppa Italiana, Italy’s version of the Charity Shield. They have been runners up in Serie A on 20 occasions and the Coppa Italia four times.

Players

Alessandro Del Piero seems to have been around for ever. He has spent 17 years at Juve and holds the all-time goalscoring and appearances record at the club. Other players include former alleged City targets Gianluigi Buffon and Giorgio Chiellini, Alberto Aquilani (on loan from Liverpool) and Milos Krasic, who was an apparent target form Roberto Mancini over the summer.

Managers

Juve have only been managed by one foreign coach since 1974, that being Didier Deschamps for the 2006/07 season. Geovanni Trappatoni has taken charge of the team twice as has Marcello Lippi, while England boss Fabio Capello took control for two years in 2004.

The current coach is Luigi Delneri

City v Juve Mind Games

Marco Motta has tried to play mind games ahead of the clash by claiming money doesn’t buy success. You’re a little late with that one, Marco. The defender has claimed that “City is proof of how big-name signings and big spending, almost 100million Euros if I’m not mistaken, is not enough to obtain great results.” Yeah I suppose you’re right. Six games and sitting fourth in the league, the Champions of England beaten as well as hammering Liverpool are not great results are they?