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Juventus
Italy · one of the fourteen clubs in the Normal pool
Italy's most successful club at home, owned by the Agnelli family since the 1920s, and a club whose defenders have been the backbone of more than one Italian national side. In Europe the story is more frustrating: two European Cups, and more lost finals than any other club.
The story in brief
Around 1960: the trio magico
At the turn of the 1960s Juventus had Giampiero Boniperti, the Welsh centre-forward and centre-half John Charles, and the Argentine Omar Sívori, who won the Ballon d'Or in 1961. Together they won three league titles in four seasons between 1958 and 1961.
1976–1986: Trapattoni's Juventus
Giovanni Trapattoni's side was built on Italian defenders: Dino Zoff in goal, Claudio Gentile, Antonio Cabrini and Gaetano Scirea at the back, with Marco Tardelli in midfield and Roberto Bettega and later Paolo Rossi in attack. Six Juventus players were in the Italy team that won the 1982 World Cup. Michel Platini arrived that summer and won the Ballon d'Or three years running from 1983. Trapattoni's Juventus won the UEFA Cup in 1977, the Cup Winners' Cup in 1984, and the European Cup in 1985 — a 1–0 win over Liverpool at Heysel, played after 39 people had been killed when a wall collapsed in the stadium before kick-off.
The 1990s: Baggio, Del Piero and Lippi
Roberto Baggio won the Ballon d'Or in 1993 at Juventus. Marcello Lippi's side, with Gianluca Vialli, Fabrizio Ravanelli and the young Alessandro Del Piero, won the Champions League in 1996 on penalties against Ajax in Rome, and then lost the next two finals, to Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid. Zinédine Zidane joined in 1996.
2000s and 2010s: Calciopoli and nine in a row
With Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thuram, Fabio Cannavaro, Pavel Nedvěd and David Trezeguet, Juventus won titles again in the early 2000s and reached the 2003 final, lost to Milan. In 2006 the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal cost them two titles and a season in Serie B; Buffon, Del Piero, Nedvěd and Trezeguet stayed and won promotion. From 2012 to 2020 Juventus won nine Serie A titles in a row, under Antonio Conte, Massimiliano Allegri and, for the last of them, Maurizio Sarri, and reached Champions League finals in 2015 and 2017. Cristiano Ronaldo spent three seasons at the club from 2018.
Juventus in Treble Winner
Juventus are in the Normal pool but not in Easy. On Normal they come up in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s; the trio magico and Zoff's 1970s are Hard only.
| Decade | Players | Best-XI rating | Rank | First on | Highest rated in the game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 104 | 78.1 | 48 | Hard | Omar Sivori, John Charles, Giampiero Boniperti |
| 1970s | 84 | 77.5 | 58 | Hard | Dino Zoff, Roberto Bettega, Pietro Anastasi |
| 1980s | 75 | 77.7 | 53 | Normal | Gaetano Scirea, Paolo Rossi, Michel Platini |
| 1990s | 130 | 78.2 | 46 | Normal | Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi |
| 2000s | 177 | 80.8 | 14 | Normal | Gianluigi Buffon, Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved |
| 2010s | 213 | 80.4 | 20 | Normal | Carlos Tevez, Giorgio Chiellini, Alessandro Del Piero |
| 2020s | 76 | 75.4 | 114 | Normal | Federico Chiesa, Dusan Vlahovic, Giorgio Chiellini |
The game rates the 2000s and 2010s almost level as Juventus's best decades. What is unusual is how strong the 1960s are — on a par with the Lippi 1990s — and how even the club is across the four decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. The 2020s, after the end of the nine-title run, are the weakest.
Drafting tips
- Juventus is a defenders' club. Scirea, Gentile, Cannavaro, Thuram and Giorgio Chiellini — who appears in three decades — make a Juventus spin a good time to fill the back four.
- Two great keepers. Zoff, in the 1970s and 1980s, and Buffon, in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s — so a Juventus spin with your goal open is good news in almost any decade.
- Del Piero spans three decades: the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, as a striker or a support forward.