++ [ originally posted by Stephañho! ] ++
Indeed. But do you really believe Zidane's world record transfer wasn't already a sure thing if not officially way before the record signings of Buffon and Nedved were unveiled? I'd guess so, knowing our boards antics and the money at stake. That makes the original statement "am happy Juve sold him and got better players from the money they made by selling him (incl. Nedved and Buffon)" relevant and its response merely a pompous precision.
Valid point.
Though, I'd actually only put Nedved's purchases 100% under the catagory of "payed by Zidane."
The reports that Juve signed Buffon was well before Zidane signed with Real Madrid. Don't you think it's a bit of a gamble that Moggi assumed everything will be set and done with Zidane? I'm sure he had some sources to back Buffon's deal up incase the Zidane sale fell. At that point we had just signed a huge deal with fastweb. While you may claim that Juve always balance the book, it's also clear that that transfer campaign wasn't a typical one by juve, and thus 'tradition' shouldn't be valued as highly in the argument.
About Buffon, I think Moggi expected to get a lot more money out of VDS (not 33m, but maybe 15m). That's why it took a while for him to sell him.
Salas was payed by Kovecevic.
Thuram was payed by Inzaghi.