(Photo by Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images)
The extensive transfer market conducted by the Juventus board has left many reeling this summer.
Four players have arrived on permanent deals, namely Diego, Felipe Melo, Fabio Cannavaro, and Fabio Grosso. Martin Caceres also arrives on loan, further strengthening a side that can now truly challenge for top honors.
This amounts to a near-complete overhaul of the squad, as each of the four permanent arrivals will undoubtedly take up a first-team spot. If the prayers of Juventus fans are answered, and Caceres wrestles away the right-back position from Grygera and Zebina, nearly half the starting team will have changed.
Coach Ciro Ferrara’s 4-3-1-2 formation leaves no doubt as to how the midfield will be deployed, with the first two matches of the season showing that this new brand of attacking football might very well prove to be the difference all Juventini were looking for.
At the back, of course, will be Gianluigi Buffon, the best goalkeeper in the world, now returning to the top of his game.
The defensive line ahead of him now boasts three of the starting defenders for the Italian national team.
At the right of defense will be one of Jonathan Zebina, Zdenek Grygera and Martin Caceres. While none of these names inspire great trust, Caceres is still an unknown quantity in Italy, and might very well find his feet in Italian football.
In the center of defense are three of Italy’s best—Giorgio Chiellini, Azzuri captain Cannavaro, and Nicola Legrottaglie—the latter being possibly the back-with-a-bang story of the decade.
No matter who starts in these positions, Juventus fans can rest assured that they will have the best defenders in Italy ahead of the best goalkeeper in the world.
Left back will now see Fabio Grosso make his debut after being signed by Juventus in the closing seconds of the transfer window. While some Juventini might miss Paolo de Ceglie, Ferrara’s trust in the youth system at Juventus indicates that he fully intends on giving the young lad his chance at glory.
Christian Molinaro, much to the relief of some fans, will now be hugging the bench, and will likely be sold in the near future.
In midfield, Claudio Marchisio is quickly making himself a name as the classiest young midfielder in Italy, and is already drawing comparisons with the likes of Marco Tardelli. Tiago seems to have revived his career as well, and has put in two comfortable, positive showings, though marred by a few fits of ‘Tiago-ness’ that fans have almost come to expect.
Completing the trio is Melo, on the back of an excellent season with rivals Fiorentina. Ahead of these players is Diego, the classy Brazilian trequartista, with the young, talented Sebastian Giovinco waiting in the wings.
The forward line is the only one to have stayed unchanged, and this comes as no surprise, given the quality of the four forwards that Juventus possess.
Names like Del Piero and Trezeguet are already etched into the annals of Calcio history, and the likes of Iaquinta and Amauri are doing everything they can to similarly achieve the status of legends in the Italian game.
An interesting point to ponder is what will become of the rest of the squad, to examine what is likely to be the coach’s vision for the Juventus squad over the following five years.
With some extremely talented players, some up-and-coming youngsters, and some who are unfortunately destined to leave Juventus without much fanfare, it will be interesting to see how Ciro Ferrara plans to prepare for the tough season ahead with the team competing in Serie A, the Champions League and the Coppa Italia.
While a bold statement to make, perhaps the most important of all the ‘backups’ is goalkeeper Alexander Manninger.
Deputizing for Buffon for large parts of last season, as well as the preseason, his performances were admirable to say the least. While he conceded a fair number of goals, he was not at fault for the majority, and made several world-class saves, proving that aside from the highly unlikely prospect of Iker Casillas, Manninger is the best backup that Juventini could hope for.
Ferrara’s defensive reinforcements include the aforementioned De Ceglie, Molinaro, Zebina and Grygera, as well as youngster Lorenzo Ariaudo, who put in a handful of promising performances last season.
With some of these players being quite versatile in terms of the roles they can play (some fans have even pondered the idea of turning Molinaro into a reverse-Zambrotta by turning him into a left-sided midfielder), Ferrara has the added advantage of being able to call up players from one of the best youth academies in the world, not just Italy.
Given that Ferrara once occupied the position of Youth System Chief at Juventus, he is intimately acquainted with the budding talent in that sector of the club.
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