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Cometh the hour, cometh the Dan (FI Blog)
The Champions League semi-final with Monaco was the perfect moment for Dani Alves to give his best Juventus performance, writes Adam Digby.
It is not often that a prestigious team with a strong European pedigree signs a player who has won the Champions League more times than the club itself. Sure, a nouveau riche side like Chelsea or Manchester City might, but for an established continental powerhouse like Juventus, it is indeed a rare occurrence.
Yet that’s just what happened this past summer, with the Bianconeri adding Dani Alves after the Brazilian opted to leave Barcelona. There he had lifted UEFA’s most prestigious trophy no fewer than three times, including in 2015 when he helped the Catalan giants dispatch Juve in a consummate display at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.
That match and the 2003 final against Milan were the closest Gigi Buffon has come to tasting the ultimate glory, but even the veteran goalkeeper was aware of what the wing-back could bring to Max Allegri’s men.
"I asked Dani Alves to help us, above all us older members of the team, to achieve the dream we are still chasing and help us push the bar a little higher," Buffon admitted before the season got underway, the club captain happily admitting even he could learn from his newest team-mate.
Clearly signed with the Champions League in mind, Alves’ performances have perhaps reflected that throughout the campaign, reserving his best performances for European nights and often looking completely underwhelmed by comparatively mundane Serie A outings.
On Wednesday evening he would deliver undoubtedly his best display since joining the Bianconeri. From the first minute he played with distinct purpose, driving at the heart of the Monaco defence, but always recovering quickly to help protect Andrea Barzagli from the pace and skill of the home side’s attack.
Buffon himself shone at the Stade Louis II with some vital saves, and of course Gonzalo Higuain deserves all the plaudits being showered upon him, but the eventual victory had Alves’ fingerprints all over it.
The Argentinian striker opened the scoring by capping a beautiful and flowing team move that was punctuated by Alves’ strong run and well-timed backheel, then doubled Juve’s advantage by slotting home another perfectly-weighted ball from his fellow South American.
It was the first time Alves had ever registered two assists in a single Champions League game, but he also recorded three tackles, one interception and six clearances, playing as big a part in the clean sheet as he had in giving the Bianconeri a two-goal cushion to take back to Turin.
It will be Alves’ 34th birthday on Saturday, the same day the Old Lady takes on cross-town rivals Torino in a derby that could even see them clinch the Scudetto if Roma fail to beat Milan the following day.
However, it seems as if the former Sevilla star has bigger celebrations on his mind and that another date is much more important than him turning another year older. Juventus signed Dani Alves for a reason, and he will hope to celebrate properly in Cardiff on June 3.