Channel 4
The 'real' Juve
Will the real Juventus please stand up? Susy Campanale says it’s not that simple for the Bianconeri or Diego
A week is a long time in football. Just seven days ago the Italian media were hailing the 'real’ Juventus, who beat Inter to open up the Scudetto race that had seemed closed and had finally found their identity. Now we’re right back to the drawing board after shipping seven goals in two matches and crashing out of the Champions League. Now it’s time for the traditional blame game.
Ciro Ferrara will inevitably shoulder a lot of the responsibility, as is natural for a Coach when his team has no real tactical identity. In a way, his biggest mistake was finding success so early. At the start of the season, the side worked pretty well and Diego put in a match-winning performance at Roma. He was not 100 per cent fit and just settling into Serie A, so we all imagined what he would achieve once the little Brazilian found real form. It just made the slide into the pit of despair that culminated in last night’s penalty miss all the more painful.
Ciro should’ve had an appalling Leonardo-style summer, as that is the kind of plotline the Italian media like to see, the phoenix from the flames rather than the more natural peak and trough structure of life. Confidence was allowed to build over time at Milan and develop the feeling they’d finally 'got it right.’ Juventus are like a string of Christmas Tree lights that flicker on occasionally, but just when you think you’ve found the right bulb that’s causing the trouble, it all goes dark again. It’s the glimpses of success that make the breakdown all the more painful, heightening the sensation that this is the momentary lapse into positivity.
Will we ever know who is the 'real’ Juventus and the 'real’ Diego? Or, like life, is there no such thing? Confidence papers over the cracks and after the capitulation to Bayern Munich and Bari, it’s in short supply in Turin and will be very difficult to get back.