Upon This Rock I Will Build My Church

By: roberto | September 5th, 2010

Since the next couple of days will be kind of slow around the club news circuit, I feel like nows a good time to talk about some of the thoughts that I’ve amassed recently about our beloved club. It’ll just be a quick little chat between friends to help this Juventus fan sleep at night. Most of all, I encourage your feedback as my girlfriend often says that sharing your feelings with others is somewhat therapeutic.

Juventus, I fucking hate your guts sometimes. Everyone do yourself a favour between now and the last game of the season. Do not search for Juventus videos on Youtube and surf through twenty pages of content on La Grande Storia della Juventus, or La Vecchia Signora, because that will only make you infuriated with what’s happening to our team. Gone are the iconic members of football’s high society, as they’re replaced with mediocrity; players, coaches, and management alike.

The reality, one that I’m sure many of you are aware, is that we’re more than just a few pieces of the puzzle away from the glory days. We’re about 8-9 men short by my calculations which is mind-boggling considering the shit-load of resources we’ve spent over the last four years. We need to focus on building the team’s spine once again, and Chiellini can be the rock we can build our revival on.

st_peter_basilica_vatican_01

‘And I say to thee. Thou art Giorgio, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ Matthew 16:18, sort of.

Marotta, for my money, was going good until the Diego deal. From now on, he’s got an uphill battle to win back my good graces after the costly Fabio loan, and the move for the Serie A unproven Armand Traore. However, he did manage to secure a capable partner for Chiellini in Bonucci, as well as a potential homerun for our midfield in Aquilani. Now if the Aquaman gamble pays-off, we’ll have finally made a solid start in our re-construction.

From top to bottom, the Serie A is the world’s most competitive football league, and for that I am truly proud to be a fan of Italian calcio today. But the taste in my mouth left after Calciopoli has yet to be purified, and thus, my overwhelming sense of anger looms. It’s agonizing at times being a Bianconeri fan because that bar was set so high decades ago. Not to mention just how tough it is to play for Juventus today as the jersey can weigh so much.

The truth is though; I will stand by my club even when it seems that there is no hope in sight because I’m sure that when we taste that success again, it’ll taste that much sweeter. I guess that’s the difference between a fan and a supporter.

Thanks Papai for the nice touch.

IERI… OGGI… DOMANI… SEMPRE JUVE!!!

Some Related Juventus Posts:

Category: Aquilani, Bonucci, Chiellini, Management, Marotta, Players, Team News

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Markiv

I think what's done is done and although I don't see anything special in the buys or in the way marotta has treated several quality players, past and present, or just marotta, I think all that remains is to support this team and hope that in the end we can achieve our objective.

On another note, it's funny that when we came back from serie b (not immediately), our major objective was to win the scudetto and we were guaranteed a top four finish. But now the mere thought of getting into the CL is an achievement for many. Even with a good coach, a supposed master of the transfer markets and the first proper footballing president since the calciopoli, we set the bar so low.
Comrade

The title of this post itself is such a huge win.. I'm unable to get it out of my head.
roberto

Looks like the board reads this blog.
http://www.football-italia.net...
Chiellini has been offered a five-year contract extension worth about 4mil a season.
djp4cal

GIVE THIS MAN HIS MOTHERFUCKING MONEY.
Papai

Great news for our future captain!

marchisio needs to find some consistency ... the kid needs his focus back in life. Hopefully aquilani's arrival will be the spark.
jorid22

Marchisio, on the other hand, would like a 3mil/year deal. DAFUCK?

Too much IMO. ~2,5 would be more reasonable.
Andy

For the life of me I cannot understand all of the moaning about Diego's loss. He was a good (but not great) player who was a poor fit for this system. You can gripe about who Marotta has replaced Diego with so far, but you're not winning a scudetto with Diego as your second striker. Period. Full stop. End of story. We're not winning a scudetto this year period, but the point is that Diego would eventually have to go.
agiamba

Diego may not win the Scudetto, but can Quags win us the CL? Poor substitute. Very poor.
Denny

considering what eventually happened when del neri began to sing diego's praises, does this (http://www.football-italia.net... mean felipe will be sold in december? ;-)
Pasquale Molluso

Granted our team is in a difficult stage, however, say we pummeled Bari 3 or 4 nil, would everyone still be hating? I've just got a feeling that everyone is over reacting.Yes we are in a very unusual period in a once great team's history, but guys, it takes time, the team needs to gel, it needs to train together regularly, it needs to get it's confidence up with a few wins under it's belt.

I just think everyone who is condemning Marotta and Del Neri need to give them a bit more time, as well as the team, before completely shunning them. If we have a dire season once more (Can't get much worse than last season can it?) then fair enough, however until then, give the team a break.
Rinaldo

But we did not pummel Bari 3 or 4 nil, and there's no way we would have. Our performance against Bari was actually quite expected; it was in no way a "shock" result, and that is why I don't think we're overreacting.
Papai

A coach should be given a season at least to put his project in place. I really didnt agree with Ranieri's sacking 2yrs ago, and Ferrara, although tactically naive, was hard done by with all the injuries and the collapse of the dressing room morale, aside from obvious squad limitations.

What we need is a period of settling down and gelling as a TEAM. All this chopping and changing and running helter skelter aint no good for building a football team.
Somnath_Sengupta

Davids is back in the business in Crystal Palace. I bet he is still better than Sissoko or Melo :P
Geoff

The last 4 years have been by far the hardest as a Juventino. But when we lift the Scudetto again, hopefully it feels like it will all be worth it. The Old Lady is being slowly reborn.
Somnath_Sengupta

Most of the Juventus fans still have that mental block of thinking that Juve are still one of the "elites". Well history wise, they are. But squad wise Juve have gone down further & further in last 4 seasons. It will take sometime to come back into top teams in Europe. The financial foundation is there, only the right players are missing. Rules with economic tightening will be enforced in next few seasons, in that environment Juve already has an advantage.
jorid22

I agree with you on Juve not being an "elite" team at the moment but at the same time, I don't agree with those who try to categorize this team as below Palermo, Roma etc. Although we had a horrific season last year, we didn't exactly do terrible the previous ones.

I'd put the post-Farsopoli Juve behind teams such as Chelsea, ManU, Arsenal(barely IMO) Barca, Real, Inter, Milan(barely), Bayern but at the same level if not ahead of clubs like Atleti, Liverpool, Wolfsburg, Werder, OM, OL, Man Shitty, Roma etc.

Not where we should be of course but still not as bad as that last season portrayed us.
Somnath_Sengupta

I dont think the current Juve team is stronger than Man City squad. It's easy to dismiss City because of the obnoxious spending. but they do have a good squad. Having said that I hope Juve breaks their duck against EPL teams & gives a rollicking to City in EL :D
jorid22

I was talking more about what the teams I mentioned have been able to achieve the last 3 years or so.

Man Shitty might have a good team ATM but how much have they spent the last few years and what have they achieved?
Blanda_Amania

I want very much for us to give a good rollicking to City!! Rollicking sounds like a good beat down.
ShakeAppeal

City have at least five players that would walk into our starting lineup. Wolfsburg have Diego and Dzeko. Liverpool have Gerrard and Torres. Werder have two of the best young talents in the world in Marin and Kroos. Lyon and Roma also have several players I would kill for. Etc.

We really need to face up to the hole we are in. Now, I think we're going upward, more or less, but it's still a long climb back.
Nnahoj

Kroos never played for Bremen; he was at Leverkusen.
Ash

He was talking about Toni Kroos' younger brother, Felix Kroos, who is pretty good himself.
jorid22

Again, I was talking more about the club's achievements as of the last few seasons. Considering the teams you mentioned though, on a lineup viewpoint:

Citeh=do have a pretty impressive roster this year though. No doubt about it. Still a big ?.
Wolfsburg=2 really good players, some other promising/very reliable ones but I don't see them better than us, quite frankly.
Liverpool=I see them in a very similar position to us. They just had a terrible season, their transfers brought the team under quite a bit of scrutiny and they find themselves with a coach who lots of people deem to be not good enough for such a club.
Werder=We'll see how they'll do with no Ozil. If your GK is Tim Wiese though...No better than us.
Lyon=Their lineup is great too. On a second thought, Lyon should be placed in the teams above us category. Cissokho, Bastos, Toulalan, Gourcuff, Kallstrom and Lisandro would all start in this Juve. Pjanic, Ederson and Grenier aren't bad either.
Riomma=Who would you kill for honestly? Pizarro is the only one player Juve has desperately needed the last few seasons from Roma's roster. DDR would be nice but we have DM's.
Somnath_Sengupta

Kroos went back to Bayern. He was on loan.
Arunashamal

If Juve kept Diego, and instead of Martinez we spent that money on Pazzini ,(Dzeko would be better but he is expensive), and put Giovinco on to the wing instead of Pepe we would have a squad that is on par with Inter and Milan. (additional....kept Caceras on loan, and should have grabbed Santon from Inter) we just did bad transfers and now everybody shamelessly talks on media that Inter and Milan are ahead of Juve, if we spent wisely this money we could have had a better squad than Milan. just bad decisions.
pablouv

What you are proposing was impossible:

We paid 12M for Martinez, Pazzo is worth at least twice as much. And even if we had the money (which we didn't have! get real people!) Samp was never going to sell any of his players to us this transfer window. It was not about money, it was about principles: they said they wouldn't and they didn't. End of story. And you are changing a striker for a winger, not a very wise move if you are trying to build a squad (pretty good if you want to sell t-shirts, though).
Markiv

As I recall Marotta was able to conjure up a figure of 30 mill for dzeko to buy him from wolfsburg. Had we not bought martinez and not sold giovinco and diego we would have had 42 mill euros. Which to me is a lot of money to fix the immediate problems and plug in the holes later. All of marotta's buys with the exception of bonucci are useless. Rather than filling each slot with average players just buy 3 good ones and use the youth. We are just aiming for a CL spot and with this formula we will definitely get it. After all, as I mentioned before, if ranieri's squad could achieve what it did then surely the one under ciro ferrara with the added buys can.
We do have the money and the resources to make big buys. First up, we have some amount of fiat money. We have just got diff home and away kit sponsors and that would rake in a lot of money and lastly, wasn't it the true financial head of juve, Blanc, who said we have at least 80 mill?
Arunashamal

So then if they don't sell Pazzini why Juve was trying to sign him on the last day? They could have done it if they wanted it from the beginning... and there are many attacking midfielders (gio isn't a striker ) and strikers in the world who are real success in wings examples-- Del Piero, Alex Pato, Dirk Kuyt, RvP, Wesley Sneijder,Balotelli, Eto,o...and honestly how bad Gio can do on the wing than Pepe? ( too bad with the transfers this season not only we can't challenge scudetto, but we can't even sell jerseys too. )
jorid22

Inter, unless you'd offer them like 15+ million for Santon wouldn't even think about selling him IMO.
Marco P.

Amen brother Roberto.
roberto

Praise the Lord.
agiamba

In the name of Del Piero, Giorgio Chiellini, and Gianluigi Buffon.
jorid22

http://i36.photobucket.com/alb...
jorid22

Zdenek Zeman's first match back in charge of Foggia in Serie C1 ended very, very well.

Zeytulayev and his Virtus Lanciano teammates put 5 past his Foggia.

I imagine the post-game interview to have gone something like this:

Journalist: "Mr. Zeman, tough game out there for your Foggia today. How come?"

Zeman: "Our opponents are cheating scum! Luciano Moggi!!!1"

Journalist: "Ummm...What, what exactly are you trying to infer Mr. Zeman?"

Zeman: "I hate you Luciano Moggi!!!1 Alessandro Del Piero is on more dope than a CVS!"

Journalist: "....."

Zeman: "Virtus players were all megadosing Nandrolone, Erythropoietin, HGH, LR3 IGF-1 as prescribed by Ricardo Agricola, who was ordered to do so by Antonio Giraudo and Luciano Moggi. Luciano Moggi!!!1 He's at fault for everything!"

Journalist: "Those are some pretty heavy accusations sir. Surely your suicidal, outdated, ridiculous, ever-inefficient tactics deserve some of the blame for today's theatrical defensive display?"

Zeman: "If Moggi wouldn't have ruined my career I would have won it all by now...My Foggia would have had 56 Scudettos, 24 Champions Leagues and I would have been supreme emperor of the universe!!! Luciano Moggi!!!1"

Journalist to cameraman: "This dude's nuts. Cut, let's gtfo here."

Zeman: "Luciano Moggi!!!1"
Papai

somehow cant bring myself to hate Zeman and Foggia... hes crazy but still.... the mans an idealist
yan

a very good summary of my feeling as well roberto.. very very good
roberto

Glad to hear it, yan. Thanks. Blanda, good stuff too.
Blanda_Amania

Winning thoughts, Roberto.

I'm buckled in for the bumpy ride with Juventus.
Come Sempre - FORZA JUVE!

Marotta has a plan - patience will reveal it. My cousin, who lives in Rome and is a die-hard Roma fan - believs that we have the best man at the helm. Look what he did at Sampdoria with limited resources.
Delneri is not a "grande allenatore" for a "grande squadra" like Juventus but he is a firm beliver in the 4-4-2 and his vision will be clear/consistent unlike last year where the formation changed every game.
In the end, the passion is back at our beloved Juve thanks to Agnelli at the reigns. Marotta showed true grit in getting rid of the S. American scouts and I believe this is the beginning of our "rinascimento".
Don't forget, we're playing for 4th place - no scudetto, no Europa League - 4th place. That's the bar and the year will be a success when - not if - we hit it!
Chuks A.

Make that 3rd place: Just in case all hell breaks lose and Ze Germans get a 4th CL spot and Italy loses one spot....