Juventus FC: La Vecchia Signora Canta

”Andrea, I need you to come to my office as soon as possible please, there is an urgent matter I would like to discuss with you.” Beep. The voicemail ended. The curtain had drawn on our Serie A campaign only five days ago with a very convincing 4-1 victory over Bologna, but the media reports had been heavily circulating that I was going to be replaced. Max Allegri, the man who had brought so much success to this club when I was a player was the name being linked to replace me. Was this going to be it, was this the conversation where I was going to be told I was no longer required by the club?

That walk to Mr Agnelli’s office had been a frequent one over the course of the season. We’d had a constant line of dialogue over the course of a challenging few months about the progress the team were making on the pitch and up until now I’d always had Andrea Agnelli’s support. Until now.

It felt like it took forever for Agnelli to answer the knock on his door too, but answer he did. ”Come on in,” came the voice from behind the door. ”Ah, Andrea, come on in, sit down, make yourself comfortable. Somewhat unnervingly, he was smiling, despite the rather serious tone he had on the voicemail he had left me.

We exchanged pleasantries, asking how each other were, how the families were doing, the usual before he put his hands together and almost like a cartoon villain, his face turned serious. ”Now, the reason I asked you here. It’s not going to be easy for you to hear I’m afraid Andrea.”

I felt my face turn from one that was modestly uncomfortable to one that became very uncomfortable and very confused. I couldn’t bare waiting any longer. ”What is it? Has something happened?” I blurted out.

”Unfortunately, Andrea, yes. Yesterday evening, after you had gone home, Mr Tudor and Mr Paratici came to my office and asked for an urgent meeting.”

“It would seem they are very unhappy with you and how the team has performed this season. They requested that I sack you immediately and put Igor in charge. They were very firm in their belief that you had not done well enough this year and that they could do a much better job.”

“Mr Tudor, even went as far as to claim that there was workplace bullying on your part and that you had treated him as inferior. It all felt rather mutinous if you ask me. Are you ok, Andrea?”

He had obviously seen that the colour had drained from my skin, I had felt it do so and there was no a glaring pit in my stomach, accompanied by a feeling of betrayal. Me and Igor Tudor, my assistant manager, had had our disagreements over the course of the season, but I had felt that we had always been able to move past them and they were nothing more than two professionals butting heads on how best to approach the next game, or who should be playing where. By finishing fourth in Serie A last year it felt that we were on good terms. To hear that he had called for my head hurt, a lot.

”Not particularly, is that why I’m here? To dismiss me? Because I do believe we’re on the right track. I know we didn’t get things right a lot last year, but we’ve made progress and next year will be a much better year. I could not believe that more firmly!” I told Mr Agnelli.

”No, no, not at all Andrea. You have my backing heading into the summer. If I speak for the club, we are behind you. I just wanted to make you aware of the situation. If it were up to me, I would want to sort it quickly and resolve this mutiny straight away, but as he is your assistant, I want to leave it in your court.”

“If you feel the working relationship can continue after this, then I am more than happy for Igor and Fabio to continue working here, so long as there are no more mentions of sacking you so that they can benefit. It is up to you.”

My head was racing. It would have been much easier if Mr Agnelli had made the decision there and then rather than leaving it up to me. But that is the life of a manager. You have to make tough decisions and this most certainly was. I asked if I was alright to leave and made my way to the door.

”You’ll have my decision by this afternoon Andrea.” I told the club’s chairman, closing the door behind me as I made my way back to my own office, the feeling of betrayal right at the surface like a knife in the back.

Next Update: #2 Arrivederci

Do it. It was a simple two word email, probably the shortest email I’d ever sent in my life, probably the most abrupt, but I’d had the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon, mulling it over, getting more and more worked up.

Mr Agnelli would know what I was talking about. The message was sent. In all honesty it all felt a bit Hollywood, felt like I was hitting the kill switch, but their betrayal hurt.

Later on, I was sat at home when the articles started to feed through on the news outlets that Igor Tudor and Fabio Paratici had lost their jobs at Juventus. The stories didn’t quite tell the whole truth, instead stating that the pair had left through mutual consent but I knew that was just the club wanting to portray the image that everything was good behind the scenes.

Igor had tried to phone me three times since I’d sent that email and then got home. Everytime I rejected it, which was then followed by a message asking why I was ignoring his messages, but I had no time for him anymore, he’d made his bed, now he had to lie in it.

Besides, I’d had conversations with Mr Agnelli about who was going to be my replacement and Andrea had told me that he would get it sorted. Angelo Peruzzi was going to be my new number 2.

He’d been a director at Lazio for five years but was apparently very excited to be getting to grips with a more hands on job again, having been assistant at Sampdoria nearly a decade ago.

Federico Cherubini was going to be promoted from one of my scouts to our new Director of Football too, he was ready. I’d long thought Federico was ready from conversations with him and I was sure he was going to excel in the job too.

For me though, it was finally time to relax after a long hard season. We were jetting off to the Caribbean in a few days for two weeks before getting back down to work, all the while whilst hoping my beloved Azzurri could impress at the upcoming European Championships. I’d got my tickets to Wembley booked for July 11th.

Previous Update: #1 Mutiny
Next Update: #3 Moving On

Having watched Igor Tudor as the manager of Hajduk Split over two spells, I can confirm that Andrea has made the right decision. Football is such a backstabbers heaven tbh, so it's no surprise that an assistant tried to make a move to get to the top. The right decision was made to remove them from the staff, and hopefully their reputation will suffer a bit of a hit where they can't get a job elsewhere for the foreseeable future.

Best of luck mate

It's a cruel business in football but fortunately it seems like you have survived this attempt of betrayal from colleagues. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

Great to see you back! It was a tough year for Juve and Pirlo but I am sure with a new backroom staff he can trust, this season will be much better. Good luck!

Good luck but i think should allegri sacked i guesss and sack morata

”It’s not you boss, and it’s not how we performed last year and not winning Serie A. It’s just time for me to move on. There’s talk of United being interested and I feel like it’s time for me to go back there and address some unfinished business, surely you can understand that?”

The 6 foot 2 Portuguese superstar sat in front of me gave me a wry smile, looking at me hoping that I would tell him I understood and accepted his wishes. I did of course. Sat in front of me was one of the best players to have ever played the game, someone that had already given so much for this team in three seasons at the club, scoring 101 goals in 133 appearances for the team.

Deep down though, I knew that regardless of what I said, Cristiano Ronaldo would be leaving Juventus before the start of the Serie A campaign in 16 days time. A player of his stature, of his pulling power would get the move he wanted. Someone would take him. Someone from only a handful of clubs around the world maybe, but CR7 would soon be playing in a different coloured shirt.

He had yet to feature for us during our limited pre-season exploits so far, having returned to training late because of his exploits with Portugal at the Euro’s in the summer and he’d handed in a transfer request yesterday the day of our 4-0 victory against Novara. He’d waited long enough for my response now, I realised.

”Yes, of course I can understand that Cristiano. I won’t stand in your way, of course I won’t. Go home, do what you need to do, you have my blessing. But thank you, without you, who knows what we would have achieved last season. And if you do come back here, take it easy on us?”

”Yes boss,” he replied, winking at me to suggest that no such thing would happen. “I’ll see you out on the pitch”

There was no denying that he was an incredible work horse. Even though his head was elsewhere he had still been giving 150% out on the training ground and if he’d been picked for the 1-0 win against Cremonese or that win against Novara, he’d have put 150% in and most likely scored.

Football can be a cruel sport, but it had been one hell of a strange summer. COVID and the global pandemic aside, Lionel Messi had left Barcelona. If you could find someone that genuinely thought he would ever leave Barcelona, I’d still tell you they were lying. Now Cristiano Ronaldo was moving on and leaving Juventus. Juventus were now going to have to move on from Cristiano Ronaldo.

Comments

J_ames: thanks for the vote of confidence man. Loyalty means nothing in football anymore…
Jack: I’ve survived one attempted mutiny, now just got to make sure the results back up the boards confidence
TheLFCFan: thanks man, it’s good to be back. A lots changed for me since I last wrote a story so I can’t invest as much time into them, hence why I’ve changed my writing style but bare with me, hopefully this can be as good as I use to make them
deadzpool: In my head canon, Pirlo was never sacked and stayed on. Morata has been decent for me so far so he stays, for now!

Previous Update: #2 Arrivederci
Next Update: #4 Moving Forward

A shame to lose a talented player and someone that will certainly need replacing to replicate the goals he scored for the club. Wonder who Pirlo will bring in.

In the end, players come and go. The more attached you get to players, the less prepared you are for when they depart. That's a lesson that I learned with a relegation

An incredible player no doubt, but I can imagine him being a pain to handle in a dressing room that has just lost out on their first league title in years. Andrea's job is to restructure the club to glory again and if that means doing it in his own image, I'm certainly looking forward to it!

”Cristiano Ronaldo has re-signed for Manchester United on a two-year contract with the option to extend for a further year. United announced that they had reached an agreement with Juventus for the 36 year old forward to return to Old Trafford on Friday. The Premier League club will pay €15 million plus a further €8 million in add-ons for the Portugal captain.” Announced the Sky Sports presenter with a huge smile on her face.

I let out a sigh. I’d known this news was coming for days now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still frustrating that we’d lost one of the best players to ever play the game. He would have brought goals to this team, it was inevitable.

That being said, his departure had allowed us a massive chance to move forward and build a real project here and move forward. As good as CR7 is, he becomes the focal point of any club and I couldn’t help but think that for Manchester United, who were trying to build towards the future and end their title drought, bringing in a 36 year old forward like Ronaldo might just hinder their progress. That wasn’t up to me though.

We’d been active in the transfer market ourselves. Kaio Jorge, the young starlet from Santos had signed for us, albeit becoming injured almost immediately, but he was a signing for the future. The signing of Manuel Locatelli, who had been a star for Italy over the summer, was the one I was most excited about though.
He’d played a pivotal role, acting in a similar role to myself in the latter stages of my career, as a deep-lying playmaker just in front of the defence, for us over the course of pre-season, helping guide us to wins over Cremonese and Novara. He was pivotal in our 2-1 victory over Barcelona to lift the ever-prestigious Joan Gamper trophy.

We’d been playing a 4-3-3 formation in the games we’d played and it had worked and worked well, certainly, a lot better than the 4-2-3-1 we’d tried against Cremonese and then in the first half against Novara. I was confident that heading into our final warm up against our under 23 team and then our first league game against Spezia we were in a good position to achieve our aims.

All that meant though that, based off the evidence in pre-season we’d adjusted to the loss of CR7 well and that we were finding a way to win in a much more cohesive way that would strengthen us in the long term.

”Another good win out there Andrea. Sassuolo are no push overs, you and the boys did well.” Mr Agnelli barged his way into the changing rooms after our penultimate pre-season game against Sassuolo. ”I’ve been really liking what I’ve been seeing out there lads, you’re playing well, keep this up and we’ll undoubtedly reclaim that title this year.”

There it was. The announcement of what we were expected to do this year. Yes, me and Mr Agnelli had discussed it previously and I knew what was expected but now the players were in on it too. The expectations had just been ramped up another level.

Fourth place wasn’t an option this year. Only a sustained push at the Serie A title, having surrendered it to Inter Milan last year would do. A title challenge, another Coppa Italia win and in the perfect world the Champions League. Mr Agnelli is obsessed with winning the Champions League. Bringing Ronaldo to Juventus was meant to bring the Champions League to Turin again. That didn’t come off, now it was down to me and my more cohesive unit to end that wait for the biggest prize. All eyes were on Saint Petersburg. All eyes were on Juventus. All eyes were on me.

Comments

The LFCFan: As a fellow LFC fan it is hard for me to admit that he was a world class talent, but players like CR7 are not what I like to build my teams around and ultimately in the long run this will suit us better. I always start my saves with the first transfer window disabled so it may be a while before I bring someone in myself, but believe me, I’m already out scouting the world and looking at a select few players who could be my main forward moving forward.

Tango: Yeah I know that feeling all too well…

Jack: We all know what that mans ambition is like and he’s not the kind of figure I want in my team long term so it may well be a blessing in disguise for us.

Previous Update: #3 Moving On
Next Update: #5 Coming Soon…

Juve has fared some good signings, and I'm eager to see how Locatelli will adapt and how Kaio Jorge can develop

Juventus is so much better off without the egotistical twat that is CR7, so I think his departure is for the best. In the long run, the club will be in a great place. You're going to save a lot of money by no longer having his wages on the books too!

Looks like the pre-season is going well but with the expectations set in stone now, with the players also hearing, the pressure might just go up a bit. But I think Pirlo will handle it well after adjusting in the first season.

hope you restore juve power