Il Capitano Alessandro Del Piero (220 Viewers)
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Wednesday 23 February, 2011
Blog: The value of Del Piero
As contract talks between Juventus and Alessandro Del Piero continue, Antonio Labbate looks at how much the No 10 is worth financially to the Old Lady
Flick to the D section in Renato Tavella’s Dizionario della Grande Juventus and you’ll come to Alessandro Del Piero’s entry. “A dose of class out of the ordinary places him amongst the greatest of our time,” part of the acclamation reads. “[After injury] he returned to being the winning ace on which Juventus’ future was built.”
Today, Del Piero no longer represents the long-term future of the Old Lady, but he remains a modern day symbol of Juve’s recent past. Before and after the scar to his knee, pre and post the devastation of Calciopoli, with or without the captain’s armband, celebrating success or pondering failure, he has earned himself a stable place in the club’s history.
When Alex arrived in Turin as a 19-year-old, he had little apart from tremendous talent. He’d spent most of his life up until that point getting away with speaking in Padova dialect, he had to hitch a lift to Juve training in teammate Massimiliano Giacobbo’s car, he split household bills and shopping expenses with Francesco Baldini, another young club colleague, and regularly rang his mother for cooking tips.
Yet joining Juventus was always a dream for the kid born in Conegliano Veneto. “It’s the team I wanted as a child, a club I chased,” he recently admitted. “I was a kid and I supported Michel Platini, I had his poster on my bedroom wall. I’ve been here for 18 years, I live Juventus every day.”
The importance of joining such a prestigious outfit was evident to Alex even before he kicked a ball for La Vecchia Signora. On the day of his presentation, he took off his Bianconeri shirt after posing in a number of shots for Salvatore Giglio. Instead of just putting the jersey down in a crumpled heap, the photographer recalls how Del Piero carefully, neatly and delicately folded his new second skin.
The sands of time though wait for no one, no matter how great they are. On Sunday, Del Piero eclipsed another club record held by Giampiero Boniperti, oddly enough the man responsible for his capture in 1993, by making his 445th Serie A appearance. But with less than six months left on his Juve deal, how many more times will he honour the shirt?
Contract talks have already begun after both the club and the player underlined their intentions to continue. “The door for a renewal is open,” said director general Giuseppe Marotta. “We just have to agree on figures, but I’m optimistic.”
While the length of a new contract, a 12-month term, has been agreed, there is reportedly a substantial difference in the salary Juve are offering and the demands of the player. Depending on which sources you want to believe, the club are offering around €1m, plus bonuses, while the forward is looking for closer to €2.5m.
Although there was something a little threatening in Andrea Agnelli’s comment this week – “Del Piero knows that he is welcome at this club, he’ll have to tell us whether he wants to continue or not” – an agreement will inevitably be reached. Del Piero, like Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, means too much to the image of the club and the fans to just be shown the door now.
The situation does pose a question though – how much is Del Piero worth? At present, even allowing for slight error in what is being reported and considering how two parties traditionally negotiate, there does seem to be quite a big discrepancy in how important Juve regard Del Piero and how the player rates himself.
Using this season’s salary sheet as a comparison tool, a €1m wage would see Del Piero only earn more than Paolo De Ceglie, Leandro Rinaudo, Alex Manninger, Armand Traore and Frederik Sorensen. A €2.5m agreement would see him become Juve’s sixth highest earner, down from his current third position, behind Gigi Buffon, Amauri, Giorgio Chiellini, Alberto Aquilani and Felipe Melo.
The player knows he’ll have to make a financial sacrifice. Juventus have made it clear that they will not reward Del Piero, now 36, with a final contract for his career in the same way that Roma did for Francesco Totti, a player who will take home a staggering €4m a season until the age of 38.
Yet a salary of what Juventus are currently offering seems a little slim for an individual whose pay has been on the decrease since he extended his Juve contract for the fourth time in 2008. Although he’s obviously not worth the €5m+ that he was on between 1999 and 2008, he was getting €1.8m in 1995 at the age of 21. One would hope that Marotta and Co are not playing on Del Piero’s attachment to the shirt, a bond which saw him sacrifice himself in Serie B for the flag.
While it’s clear that Del Piero is no longer considered as a regular first teamer, the statistics for this term don’t fully hold up the view that he is simply a squad player or a luxury reserve. Although we have to consider that mass injury problems have restricted Gigi Del Neri’s use of his strikers, Del Piero has actually appeared in more games than anyone else. Along with Giorgio Chiellini, he’s featured in 35 matches in all competitions and only Fabio Quagliarella has outscored him – nine to seven.
Isolating just his Serie A stats, he’s made 23 appearances for a total of 1147 minutes so far. Nine other squad members have totalled more time on the pitch this term, but only one of those, Quagliarella, is from the collection of strikers. It’s those kind of stats that add substance to the belief that Del Piero isn’t finished just yet.
“Forget about his standing as a symbol, Alessandro will still give a lot on the field of play,” says Romeo Benetti, Juve’s hardman midfielder of the 1970s. “When he’s missing, the light goes off for the Bianconeri. The club must extend his contract, not because of his past, but because he is the only player in the squad right now that can allow the team to make a jump up in class.”
But class comes at a cost, it now remains to be seen how much Juventus value a player who, for some, is the greatest in the club’s history.
FI.
Blog: The value of Del Piero
As contract talks between Juventus and Alessandro Del Piero continue, Antonio Labbate looks at how much the No 10 is worth financially to the Old Lady
Flick to the D section in Renato Tavella’s Dizionario della Grande Juventus and you’ll come to Alessandro Del Piero’s entry. “A dose of class out of the ordinary places him amongst the greatest of our time,” part of the acclamation reads. “[After injury] he returned to being the winning ace on which Juventus’ future was built.”
Today, Del Piero no longer represents the long-term future of the Old Lady, but he remains a modern day symbol of Juve’s recent past. Before and after the scar to his knee, pre and post the devastation of Calciopoli, with or without the captain’s armband, celebrating success or pondering failure, he has earned himself a stable place in the club’s history.
When Alex arrived in Turin as a 19-year-old, he had little apart from tremendous talent. He’d spent most of his life up until that point getting away with speaking in Padova dialect, he had to hitch a lift to Juve training in teammate Massimiliano Giacobbo’s car, he split household bills and shopping expenses with Francesco Baldini, another young club colleague, and regularly rang his mother for cooking tips.
Yet joining Juventus was always a dream for the kid born in Conegliano Veneto. “It’s the team I wanted as a child, a club I chased,” he recently admitted. “I was a kid and I supported Michel Platini, I had his poster on my bedroom wall. I’ve been here for 18 years, I live Juventus every day.”
The importance of joining such a prestigious outfit was evident to Alex even before he kicked a ball for La Vecchia Signora. On the day of his presentation, he took off his Bianconeri shirt after posing in a number of shots for Salvatore Giglio. Instead of just putting the jersey down in a crumpled heap, the photographer recalls how Del Piero carefully, neatly and delicately folded his new second skin.
The sands of time though wait for no one, no matter how great they are. On Sunday, Del Piero eclipsed another club record held by Giampiero Boniperti, oddly enough the man responsible for his capture in 1993, by making his 445th Serie A appearance. But with less than six months left on his Juve deal, how many more times will he honour the shirt?
Contract talks have already begun after both the club and the player underlined their intentions to continue. “The door for a renewal is open,” said director general Giuseppe Marotta. “We just have to agree on figures, but I’m optimistic.”
While the length of a new contract, a 12-month term, has been agreed, there is reportedly a substantial difference in the salary Juve are offering and the demands of the player. Depending on which sources you want to believe, the club are offering around €1m, plus bonuses, while the forward is looking for closer to €2.5m.
Although there was something a little threatening in Andrea Agnelli’s comment this week – “Del Piero knows that he is welcome at this club, he’ll have to tell us whether he wants to continue or not” – an agreement will inevitably be reached. Del Piero, like Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, means too much to the image of the club and the fans to just be shown the door now.
The situation does pose a question though – how much is Del Piero worth? At present, even allowing for slight error in what is being reported and considering how two parties traditionally negotiate, there does seem to be quite a big discrepancy in how important Juve regard Del Piero and how the player rates himself.
Using this season’s salary sheet as a comparison tool, a €1m wage would see Del Piero only earn more than Paolo De Ceglie, Leandro Rinaudo, Alex Manninger, Armand Traore and Frederik Sorensen. A €2.5m agreement would see him become Juve’s sixth highest earner, down from his current third position, behind Gigi Buffon, Amauri, Giorgio Chiellini, Alberto Aquilani and Felipe Melo.
The player knows he’ll have to make a financial sacrifice. Juventus have made it clear that they will not reward Del Piero, now 36, with a final contract for his career in the same way that Roma did for Francesco Totti, a player who will take home a staggering €4m a season until the age of 38.
Yet a salary of what Juventus are currently offering seems a little slim for an individual whose pay has been on the decrease since he extended his Juve contract for the fourth time in 2008. Although he’s obviously not worth the €5m+ that he was on between 1999 and 2008, he was getting €1.8m in 1995 at the age of 21. One would hope that Marotta and Co are not playing on Del Piero’s attachment to the shirt, a bond which saw him sacrifice himself in Serie B for the flag.
While it’s clear that Del Piero is no longer considered as a regular first teamer, the statistics for this term don’t fully hold up the view that he is simply a squad player or a luxury reserve. Although we have to consider that mass injury problems have restricted Gigi Del Neri’s use of his strikers, Del Piero has actually appeared in more games than anyone else. Along with Giorgio Chiellini, he’s featured in 35 matches in all competitions and only Fabio Quagliarella has outscored him – nine to seven.
Isolating just his Serie A stats, he’s made 23 appearances for a total of 1147 minutes so far. Nine other squad members have totalled more time on the pitch this term, but only one of those, Quagliarella, is from the collection of strikers. It’s those kind of stats that add substance to the belief that Del Piero isn’t finished just yet.
“Forget about his standing as a symbol, Alessandro will still give a lot on the field of play,” says Romeo Benetti, Juve’s hardman midfielder of the 1970s. “When he’s missing, the light goes off for the Bianconeri. The club must extend his contract, not because of his past, but because he is the only player in the squad right now that can allow the team to make a jump up in class.”
But class comes at a cost, it now remains to be seen how much Juventus value a player who, for some, is the greatest in the club’s history.
FI.
