Juventus was a bit of a mad one really. They won the european cup, sold 15 players, bought 9 and then went on to get to the next 2 finals. 
Just found this from 'back in the day'
Quote:
T TAKES BOLD, or foolish, men to flaunt the maxim: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Roberto Bettega and Marcello Lippi, are such men. In May they won soccer's crown jewel, the European Cup, as chief executive and coach to Juventus. In the summer they tore the playing squad to pieces, selling 15 players, recruiting nine, turning over $53.85 million
On Wednesday in Turin's unloved Stadio delle Alpi Juventus starts its defense of the Champions Cup against Manchester United. It will be the first night of reckoning. Has the frenzied trading improved or destroyed Juve? The courage of Bettega, once idolized as a Juventus goalscorer, and Lippi, a defender from other places is in no doubt. They cast out Fabrizio Ravanelli. They allowed Gianluca Vialli to depart. They said thank you and good-bye to Paulo Sousa, the Portuguese playmaker, and gave retirement papers to Pietro Vierchowod, the reliable defenseman.
All were key components in the winning of the coveted prize. As they sipped from the cup, Bettega and Lippi plotted change. Those who point fingers at Juve's "sell out" miss the point, and misread the balance sheet.
By hiring Christian Vieri and Alen Boksic, a big young Italian and a stealthy Croat, the club is backing Lippi's view that the Ravanelli-Vialli dynamic duo was replaceable and that this summer was the right time to replace them.
In Paolo Montero, the Uruguyan center back, Juventus hopes it has a defender hungrier, fitter, stronger than 37-year-old Vierchowod. The creative Zinedine Zidane from Bordeaux must do what Sousa did, only do it more consistently.
Four in and four out; the others are the legs of the victorious machine or peripheral performers who enter and exit when the team needs tuning.
The bill splits pretty evenly. Purchases cost $26.25 million, sales recouped $27.6 million, though if Juventus off-load winger Attilio Lombardo as intended the balance will swing comfortably to credit. Add at least $15 million in income from winning the Champions' Cup, and the face lift for La Vecchia Signora, the old lady of soccer, was not bad business.
But this is much more than a business. Bettega and Lippi are tinkering with the emotions of millions of tifosi and with those of one fan in particular.
Gianni Agnelli, I keep reading, has passed the reins of his beloved club to his younger brother Umberto. But Avoccato Agnelli, until recently the boss of Fiat, cannot simply pass on the club — the distraction of his lifetime.
He has been ill. He has undergone heart surgery. He certainly handed the keys to the Fiat boardroom to Cesare Romiti, his right hand man.
However, to hand over the family business is one thing. To give up both the heart and the hand of La Signora is quite another. Gianni Agnelli once told me, in an apparently despairing hour of Juve failure, that he gave more of himself, emotionally and financially, to Juventus than made any kind of sense. He could not help himself.
Umberto cannot replace him. He can sit at the head of the table, but Bettega and Lippi are following the philosophy of Gianni Agnelli.
When Bettega explains his strategy, he recalls Agnelli's words. "We have spent more money in the 1990s than any other club in the world," Agnelli told Bettega on appointing him executive vice president. "But we haven't made the best use of our investments. We have to balance the team but we also have to balance the books."
That began the summer before this one, notably when Roberto Baggio, whose genius came in a physically fragile package, was sold to AC Milan rather than extend his contract on terms which suited Baggio's bank rather than Juve's.
A similar principal applied to Vialli this year, enormous though his leadership had been. Had Vialli wanted one more season, or been amenable to a season-by-season extension he would have got it. But he wanted, and found with the London club Chelsea, a three-year $6 million deal which will see him through to his mid-thirties.
Last season EU players gained freedom of contract. While their contracts run they can command massive transfer fees. When their contracts end they may move where they will without compensation to their old club.
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SO BETTEGA and Lippi must back their long-term judgments. They bound Alessandro Del Piero to the club to the end of this century. He is young and if he fulfills his talent his resale value should multiply. They gambled that Boksic, a stunning match winner with Marseille but an underachiever at Lazio, can rediscover that ghostly, cold-blooded ability to strike against the best defenders. Equally, they assessed that the ravenous Ravanelli has already given his best.
They chose Vieri because he is 23, Nicola Amoruso Vieri's deputy, is 22, Zidane is 24.
"We live in times of great change," said Bettega. "We have to be responsible. We have made hard decisions, but not only on a financial basis. Everyone assumes it is important to have standard-bearer players, but that is a role which can also hide the fact that players are no longer what they were. Sometimes its better to make changes before you get to that stage.
"Lippi's task is to build a team with a future rather than persevere with a past."
I guess the guys are fixing it before the thing goes broke. And Agnelli approves. He never understood why he allowed Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Milan, to sucker him into an over-inflated marketplace for players in the first place.
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I liked the bit about Zidane
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09-01-2009, 02:51 PM
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