Seria A: Juventus in 2010 and Beyond

The past five years have been the most difficult to stomach for any Bianconeri fan.

The players that have been brought in are reminiscent of those brought in by Rafa Benitez at Liverpool. The backroom staff has been a shambles, moving from world class coaches in the form of Marcello Lippi and Fabio Capello, to substandard managers in the form of Alberto Zaccheroni and Claudio Ranieri (despite Ranieri being a very good coach, he is not Juventus material, in that he will never win a championship).

Juventus have begun on a new era, a new Agnelli era, replacing Jean-Claude Blanc with Andrea Agnelli, replacing Ciro Ferrara and Alberto Zaccheroni with Luigi Del Neri.

Juventus has always been a club with roots in Italian football and it's history is of growing and nurturing Italian talent. In 1934, Juventus had nine representatives in their world cup winning squad and was on the back of Juventus winning four championships on the trot.

Juventus would later win the 1935 Serie A title as well. In 1938, Juventus had only two representatives on the national squad that won the world cup. This on the back of Juventus finishing 2nd in the Serie A race.

In 1982, Juventus supplied the Azzurri with six champions—Scirea, Zoff, Gentile, Rossi, Tardelli and Cabrini. This world cup win was highlighted by another Serie A title for Juventus.

In 2006, when Italy won the world cup, there were five Juventus players, four of which were indispensable at the national level and all contributed to the Azzurri winning the cup that year. This was on the back of Juventus winning a title and on the back of the Calciopoli scandal. It is said that Italy performs best when their backs are against the wall, and the 2006 World Cup win was proof of that.

This past world performance by the Italians can be classified as the “worst performance by an Italian team in any competition” and this is on the back of Juventus’ worst performance in club history. It might be premature to say that as Juventus goes, so do the Azzurri.

In the summer of 2010, Juve have made the acquisitions of Davide Lanzafame, Leonardo Bonucci, Marco Storari, Simone Pepe and Jorge Martinez, four Italian acquisitions to one international. But, what do these players actually bring to the table for Juventus?

The only quality acquisition so far, has been that of Leonardo Bonucci. A strong, young, and versatile defender can have a lasting impression on the state of the Italian defence with his partnership to Giorgio Chielini, as both players are under the age of 26.

Davide Lanzafame is a previous Juventus youth player who can play both as a winger and a striker. But, if Juventus in its heyday didn’t have the confidence in a player such as this, why would they have confidence in him now? We can recall what happened to Michele Paolucci who was brought back to the club after a striker crisis and failed to ignite.

Simone Pepe, an Italian international, had a terrible time at the world cup and doesn’t quite seem to be the quality that used to make up Juve in the past.

Next up, two players who were not good enough to make it to the World Cup with their national team—Jorge Martinez and Marco Storari. Storari can be forgiven because he is essentially back up to a great goalkeeper in Gianluigi Buffon.

One glaring thing with these acquisitions is that they are mostly Italian, which implies that Juve is reverting to their motto of growing and buying Italian talent. But with these acquisitions, what about the players that are already there.

One person who definitely does not fit the bill is Felipe Melo. The golden bin winner, and possibly one of the most overrated players in the world. Juventus paid over the odds prices for a player who had one good season and is now paying for it. If Juve don’t get rid of him, it will be another miserable season for Juventus and it's fans. But this year should be a year of transition, and the only way for Juve is up because they couldn’t possibly play any worse than they did in the '09-'10 season.