Biography
Juventus Football Club, colloquially known as Juve is a professional Italian football club in Turin, Piedmont. Founded in 1897 by a group of Torinese students, the club has worn a black and white striped home kit since 1903 and has played home matches in different grounds around its city, the latest being the 41,507-capacity Allianz Stadium. Nicknamed Vecchia Signora ("the Old Lady"), the club has won thirty-three official league titles, twelve Coppa Italia titles and seven national Super Cups titles, being the record holder for all these competitions; two Intercontinental Cups, two European Champion Clubs' Cup and UEFA Champions Leagues, one European Cup Winners' Cup, a national record of three UEFA Cups, two UEFA Super Cups and one UEFA Intertoto Cup. Consequently, the side leads the historical Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) ranking whilst on the international stage occupies the 4th position in Europe and the eight in the world for most confederation titles won with eleven trophies, having led the UEFA ranking during seven seasons since its inception in 1979, the most for an Italian team and joint second overall.
Founded with the name of Sport-Club Juventus, initially as an athletics club, it is the second oldest of its kind still active in the country after Genoa's football section (1893) and has competed uninterruptedly in the top flight league (reformulated as Serie A from 1929) since its debut in 1900 after changing its name to Foot-Ball Club Juventus, with the exception of the 2006-07 season, being managed by the industrial Agnelli family almost continuously since 1923. The relationship between the club and that dynasty is the oldest and longest in national sports, making Juventus the first professional sporting club in the country, having established itself as a major force in the national stage since the 1930s and at confederation level since the mid-1970s and becoming one of the first ten wealthiest in world football in terms of value, revenue and profit since the mid-1990s, being stocked in Borsa italiana since 2001.
Under the management of Giovanni Trapattoni, the club won thirteen trophies in the ten years before 1986, including six league titles and five international titles, and became the first to win all three competitions organised by the Union of European Football Associations: the European Champions' Cup, Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Cup. With successive triumphs in the 1984 European Super Cup and 1985 Intercontinental Cup, it become the first and thus far only in the world to complete a clean sweep of all confederation trophies; an achievement that they revalidated with the title won in the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup after another successful era led by Marcello Lippi, becoming in addition the only professional Italian club to have won every ongoing honour available to the first team and organised by a national or international football association. In December 2000, Juventus was ranked seventh in the FIFA's historic ranking of the best clubs in the world and nine years later was ranked second best club in Europe during the 20th Century based on a statistical study series by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, the highest for an Italian club in both.
The club's fan base is the largest at national level and one of the largest worldwide. Unlike most European sporting supporters' groups, which are often concentrated around their own club's city of origin, it is widespread throughout the whole country and the Italian diaspora, making Juventus a symbol of anticampanilismo ("Anti-parochialism") and italianità ("Italianness"). The club has also provided the most players to the Italy national team, and different groups of its players have led the Azzurri squad to international success, most importantly in the 1934, 1982 and 2006 FIFA World Cups.
Juventus were founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo D'Azeglio Lyceum school in Turin, but were renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later. The club joined the Italian Football Championship during 1900. In 1904, the businessman Ajmone-Marsan revived the finances of the football club Juventus, making it also possible to transfer the training field from piazza d'armi to the more appropriate Velodrome Umberto I. During this period, the team wore a pink and black kit. Juventus first won the league championship in 1905 while playing at their Velodrome Umberto I ground. By this time the club colours had changed to black and white stripes, inspired by English side Notts County.
There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin. President Alfred Dick was unhappy with this and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino which in turn spawned the Derby della Mole. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, surviving the First World War.
Fabio Capello was appointed as Juventus' coach in 2004 and led the club to two more consecutive Serie A titles. In May 2006, Juventus became one of the five clubs linked to a 2006 Italian football scandal, the result of which saw the club relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history. The club was also stripped of the two titles won under Capello in 2005 and 2006.
Many key players left following their relegation to Serie B, including Lillian Thuram, star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic and defensive stalwart Fabio Cannavaro. However, other big name players such as Alessandro Del Piero, Gianluigi Buffon, David Trézéguet and Pavel Nedved remained to help the club return to Serie A, while youngsters from the Primavera (youth team), such as Sebastian Giovinco and Claudio Marchisio, were integrated into the first team. Juventus won the Cadetti (Serie B championship) and gained promotion straight back up to the top division as league winners after the 2006-07 season, as captain Del Piero claimed the top scorer award with 21 goals.
As early as 2010, Juventus considered challenging the stripping of their scudetti from 2005 and 2006, dependent on the results of trials connected to the 2006 scandal. Subsequent investigations found in 2011 that Juventus' relegation in 2006 was without merit. When former general manager Luciano Moggi's conviction in criminal court in connection with the scandal was thrown out by an appeals court in 2015, the club sued the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) for EUR443 million for damages caused by their 2006 relegation. FIGC president Carlo Tavecchio offered to discuss reinstatement of the lost scudetti in exchange for Juventus dropping the lawsuit.
After returning to Serie A in the 2007-08 season, Juventus appointed Claudio Ranieri as manager. They finished in third place in their first season back in the top flight and qualified for the Champions League third qualifying round in the preliminary stages. Juventus reached the group stages, where they beat Real Madrid in both home and away legs, before losing in the knockout round to Chelsea F.C.. Ranieri was sacked following a string of unsuccessful results and Ciro Ferrara was appointed as manager on a temporary basis for the last two games of the 2008-09 season, before being subsequently appointed as the manager for the 2009-10 season.
Ferrara's stint as Juventus manager, however, proved to be unsuccessful, with Juventus knocked out of Champions League and Coppa Italia, as well as just lying on the sixth place in the league table at the end of January 2010, leading to the dismissal of Ferrara and the naming of Alberto Zaccheroni as caretaker manager. Zaccheroni could not help the side improve, as Juventus finished the season in seventh place in Serie A. For the 2010-11 season, Jean-Claude Blanc was replaced by Andrea Agnelli as the club's president. Agnelli's first action was to replace Zaccheroni and director of sport Alessio Secco with Sampdoria manager Luigi Delneri and director of sport Giuseppe Marotta. However, Delneri failed to improve their fortunes and was dismissed. Former player and fan favourite Antonio Conte, fresh after winning promotion with Siena, was named as Delneri's replacement. In September 2011, Juventus relocated to the new Juventus Stadium.
Juventus have played in black and white striped shirts, with white shorts, sometimes black shorts since 1903. Originally, they played in pink shirts with a black tie. The father of one of the players made the earliest shirts, but continual washing faded the colour so much that in 1903 the club sought to replace them. Juventus asked one of their team members, Englishman John Savage, if he had any contacts in England who could supply new shirts in a colour that would better withstand the elements. He had a friend who lived in Nottingham, who being a Notts County supporter, shipped out the black and white striped shirts to Turin. Juventus have worn the shirts ever since, considering the colours to be aggressive and powerful.
