Juve expect pure football

FOR THOSE of us brought up on tales of Milan’s arrival back in 1974 at St Mel’s Park, where they were famously held to a scoreless draw by Athlone Town, the sight of the Juventus bus pulling into Tallaght stadium yesterday was a strangely disappointing affair.

Folklore has it that the misery endured by then manager, Giovanni Trapattoni on his first trip to Ireland, as well as by legendary players like Angelo Anquilletti, Romeo Benetti and Albertoni Bigon started when they descended from their team bus to discover there was some deep mud to be negotiated before they made it to their dressing room.

It wasn’t a challenge that the Italians had come dressed for and the experience must have provided some small hint of the unpleasantness (from an Italian point of view) that was to come.

Tallaght stadium, on the other hand, is a perfectly fine municipal facility and for once that might just be a bad thing, as there is little there to inspire a sense of foreboding in your average multi-millionaire footballer.

Still, the place might yet be remembered by current Juve coach, Luigi Delneri, as a little piece of private hell if things don’t go well for his men this evening.

The Italian giants have suffered some hard times of late with relegation to Serie B for their part in a match fixing scandal, followed by four difficult years, during which they have looked to six different coaches to restore their fortunes.

Delneri is the sixth but the tally must seem modest enough to a man who has had 18 different jobs in management, with successes like his remarkable first stint at Chievo, widely dubbed a “miracle” back in Italy, balanced out by rather less memorable spells at the likes of Roma and Palermo.

Twice, in fact, Delneri has been fired without even managing to oversee a single competitive game at a club and one suspects that if this evening goes badly, he might do well to make it to double figures on this occasion.

At yesterday’s press conference in Tallaght he seemed businesslike in an underwhelming sort of way but there is clearly an element of bravery too, for it seems unlikely that he will start tonight’s match with club captain Alesandro Del Piero on the field, something the former Italian international striker, sitting immediately to his right, didn’t seem entirely thrilled about.

Del Piero described games like this as “pure football” and said he was excited by the prospect of being involved.

Asked why this wasn’t enough on its own to merit the player’s inclusion, Delneri, who said just after his recent appointment that keeping Del Piero and Gianluigi Buffon at the club was important from “an image standpoint,” replied that every player was passionate about games and that he would make his decision on who to start here shortly before kick off.

He was pressed too on why he had left Fabio Grosso, Mauro Camoranesi and Felipe Melo back in Italy and said it was for “tactical” reasons while Nicola Legrottaglie, like Vincenzo Iaquinta, is injured.

The explanation was quietly accepted by a travelling press corps whose demeanour suggested they might be keeping their powder dry.

For all their problems, Delneri’s side possesses a fair bit of firepower and the much travelled coach had better hope his strikers aren’t doing the same this evening.