Lippi’s return boosts Juventus

Marcello Lippi’s return to Turin in the summer of 2001, for a second spell in charge of Juventus FC appears to have paid dividends. His subsequent triple swoop for Gianluigi Buffon and Lilian Thuram from Parma AC and Pavel Nedved from S.S. Lazio immediately installed the Turin giants among the favourites for Serie A and the UEFA Champions League, two titles that the club had not won since Lippi was last in charge.

Past glories
After twice finishing as runners-up in Serie A under previous coach Carlo Ancelotti (to Lazio in 2000 and AS Roma in 2001), Lippi was brought back in order to return the club to winning ways, something he is immensely proud of. “It was a matter of some pride and huge satisfaction when Juventus called me back here,” he told uefa.com. Between 1994 and his resignation in the spring of 1999, he guided Juventus to three consecutive Champions League finals (winning one), the UEFA Cup, a hat-trick of Serie A crowns, the UEFA Super Cup, the European/South American Cup and the Coppa Italia.

Small adjustments
Many of the squad who had been part of that period of sustained success were still at the club when Lippi returned, including uncompromising Uruguayan centre-back Paolo Montero, utility defender Gianluca Pessotto, inspirational club captain and Italian international forward Alessandro del Piero, midfield player Edgar Davids, as well as a whole host of other players including Antonio Conte, Ciro Ferrara, Igor Tudor, Mark Juliano, Alessio Tacchinardi and Nicola Amoruso. With so much talent already in place, it was deemed by the fans, the Italian media and the players themselves that all that was needed was a little bit of fine tuning, under the watchful gaze of Lippi himself, to put Juventus back where they belong.

FIRST GROUP STAGE: Slow start

Placed in Group E alongside FC Porto, Celtic FC and Rosenborg BK, a group in which the Bianconeri were expected to stroll through without having to break sweat, Juventus were ultimately grateful for a controversial 90th-minute penalty which sealed an opening 3-2 win over Celtic in Turin, without which Lippi and his team would not have qualified for the second group stage of the competition. Draws in Trondheim and Porto followed, the latter achieved after an outstanding display from the world’s most expensive goalkeeper Buffon which helped to repay some of the €52.29m shelled out on him by Lippi.

Question marks
However, Juventus were far from looking like the finished article, something Lippi explained as being a result of a congestion of European and domestic fixtures in the early part of the season: “We were involved in the first round of the Champions League with six games on consecutive Wednesdays and then league matches every Sunday," he said. "That is very tough.”

Group winners
One thing that had not changed since Lippi’s return was the club’s ability to win at all costs in the Delle Alpi stadium. Matchdays Four and Five effectively sealed their qualification for the second group stage. A solitary David Trezeguet goal was enough to beat Rosenborg 1-0, while Porto were punished for taking the lead in Turin as they eventually went down 3-1, a result that meant that Juventus had sealed their continued progress in the Champions League with a game to spare. They went on to lose their final fixture 4-3 to Celtic in one of the games of the season.

SECOND GROUP STAGE: True test

No group, however hard, should cause a team of Juventus’s ability and stature sleepless nights, but when the Serie A team were drawn in Group D alongside three of Europe’s in-form teams - RC Deportivo La Coruña, Arsenal FC and Bayer 04 Leverkusen -  a place in the quarter-finals next March was by no means guaranteed. However, after their opening fixture at home to Leverkusen, a 4-0 victory twice delayed because of fog in Turin and subsequently played as an afternoon kick-off (a first for a Champions League game), it appeared as though the old swagger had returned to the ‘Old Lady' of Italian football. France striker Trezeguet scored twice against the 1. Bundesliga leaders to make him the top scorer in the competition so far with eight goals, while Del Piero grabbed his fourth of the tournament to confirm his rehabilitation from the serious knee injury that kept him out for most of the 1998/99 season.

Back down to earth
That joy evaporated as quickly as it had surfaced when Arsenal demonstrated just what a tight group Juventus had found themselves in following a 3-1 win at Highbury stadium in the final game before the winter break. That result came in the middle of a tough period for Juventus domestically and one in which their key driving force in the middle of the park, Dutch international Edgar Davids was absent from the side due to a loss of form.  With all four Group D clubs level on three points after two matches, it is impossible to predict which two will make it through to the lucrative latter stages, although Juventus’ big match experience should hold them in good stead when it comes down to the wire.

REMAINING GAMES: Too close to call

Juventus return to European action next February with a mouthwatering double-header against current Primera División leaders Deportivo, beginning at home, and Lippi feels that his side will be more focused and harder to beat in 2002 because “there are gaps in the timetable over the end of year period". But, with a trip to the BayArena to follow, where both Deportivo and FC Barcelona have come away empty handed this season, and Arsenal visiting Turin to conclude proceedings, taking maximum points from their home fixtures is an absolute must for Lippi and his team.

THE COACH: Marcello Lippi

This 53-year-old former Sampdoria UC, Atalanta BC, SSC Napoli, Juventus and Internazionale FC coach is one of the most respected figures in both Italian and world football mainly because of his achievements during his first five-year spell in Turin.

Some record
Despite a fairly undistinguished playing career with Sampdoria, where he scored seven goals in 239 Serie A appearances, as well as making two appearances for the Italian B side, Lippi began to make a name for himself as a redoubtable and inspiring coach while leading Atalanta and Napoli to seventh and sixth place respectively in Serie A in 1993 and 1994 on limited budgets and resources.

Turin calling
These feats earned him the call to Turin for the 1994/95 campaign. Juventus were then a team lying in the giant shadow of Fabio Capello’s great Milan AC team that had just reached two successive Champions League finals, with a third to follow, and won three consecutive titles. Lippi’s brief was not only to return the club to the domestic glories of their most successful-ever coach, Giovanni Trapattoni, but also to replace Milan as Europe’s dominant force.

Hat-trick
Few could have envisaged just how quickly the cigar smoking Lippi would achieve his aims. In his first season he won the domestic double, ending Milan’s three-year hold over Serie A and earning the club its first league title since Trapattoni's class of 1986. Success followed success and Lippi’s sides became well known for not only working hard off the ball, but also for being tactically flexible. Lippi also proved himself outstanding in the purchase of players, most notably when he plucked an unhappy Davids from rivals Milan in December 1997, a signing that proved a catalyst for the club’s third Serie A crown in a row. After a brief and unhappy spell in charge of Inter where his methods were criticised by Italian international Roberto Baggio, Lippi has now returned to the club he calls ‘home’ with a slight question mark hanging over him, He has something to prove, not just to the insatiable Italian media, but also to himself.

THE PLAYER: David Trezeguet

Currently the top scorer in this season’s Champions League with eight strikes in eight games, already more than last season’s top scorer, it appears as though this French international centre-forward has not only finally settled down in Turin, but has also convinced the demanding Juventus faithful of his undoubted talents.

Wonderful prospect
Having been bought for Juventus by Ancelotti from French first division side AS Monaco for the 2000/01 season, the Argentinian-born striker initially struggled to impose himself at the club and injuries in his first campaign did not help either. However, towards the end of the season, in which Juventus chased eventual champions Roma all the way, this classical centre-forward ended up hitting the net seven times in his last five Serie A games for the club for an overall total of 14 in 25 league games in total.

Shattered
Earlier in his career, 52 goals in 93 matches for Monaco alongside his great friend Thierry Henry led former Juventus and French great Michel Platini to compare Trezeguet to Paolo Rossi and those early expectations appeared to slightly affect his performances during the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Despite playing in every match all the way up until the final, he was left out of the starting line-up by Aimé Jacquet as France defeated Brazil 3-0 to win the World Cup. However, he scored his country's Golden Goal winner against Italy in the final of EURO 2000™ to make up for that disappointment.

DOMESTIC FORM: 'The Serie A contest has yet to begin.'

Juventus currently lie in fourth spot in the table with almost half the season played, but although they have lost just twice in 16 matches, they have also drawn more matches than any other team in the league, seven, a statistic that could count against them come the end of the season. With a strike force of Del Piero and Trezequet, goals will never be hard to come by, but it has been the erratic form of new signings Buffon and Nedved that has caused most consternation at the club, with the latter only recently having just scored his first league goal of the season.
The six points between Juventus and leaders Inter is not a massive gap to make up and as Lippi himself recently said: “The Serie A contest has yet to begin.”