Juventus and the Identity Crisis Facing the Serie A

To say that the Serie A is still not feeling the effects of Calciopolli is like saying that steroids didn't help Mark McGwire hit home runs. But this is no time to point out that Inter's president also owned the Telecom company that wire-tapped the complicity between Juventus and referees. OK, that was a cheap shot, and in no way does TLOCA condone match-fixing, but let's focus on the roster changes at Juventus since May 2006, when the Serie A exploded.

Check out their roster before the scandal. Here are the top players based on Games Started in 2005/2006 -
Fabio Cannavaro
Gianluca Zambrotta
Emerson
Patrick Viera
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Pavel Nedved
David Trezeguet
Mauro Camoranesi
Lilian Thuram
Gigi Buffon
Adrian Mutu
Alessandro Del Piero

Wow. That is scary good. Six of their starters are Top-100 players ever. Hindsight is typically flawless but its safe to assume based on how these players performed in the World Cup the next year that this squad is stacked.

Meanwhile, the scandal hits, and somewhere in Durham, NC, Duke lacrosse players throw a party they wish they hadn't. This is now after the Serie B (they had orginially been relegated to Serie C(!) but appealed and won). By Games Started in 2007-

Remained: Trezegol, Del Fire, Gigi The Greatest Ever Buffon, Pavel Blonde Locks Of Love Nedved and Camoranesi

Goodbye:
Cannavaro
Zambrotta
Emerson
Viera
Ibrahimovic
Thuram
Mutu

New as regular starters:
Legrottaglie
Chiellini
Molinaro
Zanetti
Nocerino
Grygera
Salihamidzic
Zebina
Sissoko
Tiago
Iaquinta (9 games started but he did have 8 goals that year)

Ummm yeah - that's quite a downgrade. Especially Molinaro, my nemesis. And clearly Mutu's departure from Juventus upset him so much he turned to cocaine as a manner of coping.

Games Started, in 2008/2009:
Grygera
Nedved (37 years old at the time)
Alessandro Del Fiero (35 at the time but still good)
Molinaro
Chiellini
Legrottaglie
Amauri
Sissoko
Mellberg
Iaquinta
Trezeguet (5 games started he was hurt and so was I) and of course
Buffon

If you don't follow Juventus regularly you surely don't recognize most of those names. This is an odd occurrence for Juventus. How odd? This club has 27 Scudettos, 2 Champions League titles, and dressed the likes of Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, and Zissou Zidane to name a few.

Let's paint this a different way. Imagine if Everton had exposed Manchester United for an atrocious and condemning match fixing scandal that saw the Red Devils relegated. A young Cristiano Ronaldo leaves as a result, and so does Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Vidic, Carrick and Fletcher. And then, just to be funny (or something), Rio Ferdinand signs 4 years later and is mostly washed-up. Hey, kind of like right now for Rio (ZING!). It's safe to say this squad is going to suffer.

Now add a global recession, a domestic recession for Italian owners, and unfavorable taxes for the ultra-rich relative to Spain and less so England. All that coupled with a Serie A without its Manchester United leaves you a league at sixes and sevens. And more importantly, a league about to lose its 4th Champions League spot. So it's all fun and games when Clint Dempsey puts a cross into the top corner by accident to send home a sorry Juventus from the equally sorry Europa league competition until someone gets hurt. And the Serie A is hurting.