Juventus off the bottom of Serie B

Mr. Presentable

http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/breps7.html

Treviso 0-1 Juventus
Juventus have moved off the bottom of the Serie B table after a 1-0 win at Treviso in the Monday night game. Cristiano Zanetti grabbed his first goal for the club since his summer switch to take the Calciopoli-hit outfit to minus one point in the standings after their fifth straight League win.
Treviso started the game brightly as Juventus took their time to settle at the Stadio Omobono Tenni. However, once the Old Lady did find their feet then they dominated the rest of the first period. Alex Del Piero, in search of his 200th club goal, found the back of the net but it was rightly ruled out for offside. The captain then should have scored for real when he was one on one with Avramov, yet the ‘keeper did well to deny him. Juve did take the lead though soon after when Mauro Camoranesi’s cross was met by Zanetti in minute 38. The half ended with Russotto and Camoranesi exchanging shots.
The home side started the second period well, but Gigi Buffon kept out efforts from Vascak, Viali and Fava. And as the tie went on, Juventus – who also had a David Trezeguet strike disallowed – played down the clock and almost doubled their lead late on with Trez and a Del Piero chip.

Xavi6

Delighted for the players that have stuck it out. 16 points off the lead is absolutely nothing at this stage of the season considering that they won't drop many points. Here's hoping they get promoted back to where those players deserve to be.

looder

Xavi6 wrote:

Delighted for the players that have stuck it out. 16 points off the lead is absolutely nothing at this stage of the season considering that they won't drop many points. Here's hoping they get promoted back to where those players deserve to be.

how can you say that? maybe the players deserve to be in seire 'A' but the club certainly doesnt. they are nothing but a shower of cheats and IMO should have been kicked out of football altogether!

Big Nelly

looder wrote:

how can you say that? maybe the players deserve to be in seire 'A' but the club certainly doesnt. they are nothing but a shower of cheats and IMO should have been kicked out of football altogether!

Exactly, hopefully in Jan alot of the players will get pi**ed at playing in second division and move on leave Juve in the hole it deserves to be in.

Xavi6

Can either of you please point me in the direction of where I said the club deserve to get back up? I said that I hope the PLAYERS get promoted back to their rightful place. If you're going to have a go at least get your quotes right.

Carcharodon

looder wrote:

how can you say that? maybe the players deserve to be in seire 'A' but the club certainly doesnt. they are nothing but a shower of cheats and IMO should have been kicked out of football altogether!

Thats quite the statement to make ! Kick the club out of football altogether and they are all a shower of cheats.
Would you not think that it would be unfair to punish the players, fans and the entire city of Turin for the actions of certain individuals.
Would you not think that this punishment is enough and will benefit the club in the long run so as this will never happen again.
I am sure Juventus have not been the only corrupt team in world football, of course they have a bad reputation in Italy for a long time but now is the time to move forward.

Big Nelly

Carcharodon wrote:

Thats quite the statement to make ! Kick the club out of football altogether and they are all a shower of cheats.
Would you not think that it would be unfair to punish the players, fans and the entire city of Turin for the actions of certain individuals.
Would you not think that this punishment is enough and will benefit the club in the long run so as this will never happen again.
I am sure Juventus have not been the only corrupt team in world football, of course they have a bad reputation in Italy for a long time but now is the time to move forward.

Never happen again? Italian football is a joke and is so corrupt. Sure the problem fines etc where imposed at the start and what happens then, bit of an appeal and they are all flying again and the big clubs are more or less back where they started.

eirebhoy

looder wrote:

how can you say that? maybe the players deserve to be in seire 'A' but the club certainly doesnt. they are nothing but a shower of cheats and IMO should have been kicked out of football altogether!

The club? What does the club represent? What has the club done? I think you'll find that these individuals that got certain referee's assigned to certain games are no longer associated with Juve. The players didn't cheat, the coach didn't cheat and the fans didn't cheat. They're the one's that had to suffer over this. The people that did all of this got a few grand fine and a temporary ban from football.

I only know a fraction of what went on from what I read in the media but very few Irish people know much about it either. They just hear "match fixing" and but this is probably the mildest form of match fixing. As I said a few times, players diving (cheating) has more of an influence on games than what these men did imo.

I'd be suprised if Juve didn't win the league without this going on anyway as they had a world class squad of players. Looking at the amount of Juve players at the world cup final then they had arguably the best squad in the world.

Mr. Presentable

Juventus had 108 points deducted at the end of last season.

For "attempting" to influence the results of matches. Not for "match fixing", as has been popularly assumed. Note, no referee was found guilty of wrongdoing during the investigation, so how could the club be guilty of influencing a referee?

At no point during the investigation - there was a hearing, no trial iirc, were Juventus allowed to submit a defence.

Historically Juve have been favoured by referees, as have Milan, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, Real Madrid, etc. Big clubs have an intimidating influence by their nature.

But in any case, if the club is punished, 108 points, 2 titles, squad dispersed, shouldn't they be entitled to try to rebuild?

As for the players, they won their points on the field and shouldn't be made pay for the "attempts" of a Board member to influence referees. Nor should the fans. Nor the shareholders, who are mostly fans too.

I look forward to watching the club progress over the next few years, though I don't expect it to reclaim its pre-eminence, unless the Agnelli's invest some cash.

gosplan

eirebhoy wrote:

The players didn't cheat, the coach didn't cheat and the fans didn't cheat. They're the one's that had to suffer over this..

Apart from the whole drugs thing but thats another story.

Funny that they're on -1 and are still not bottom.:D

SpAcEd OuT

gosplan wrote:

Apart from the whole drugs thing but thats another story.

Funny that they're on -1 and are still not bottom.:D

What are you talking about

Surely you dont mean the drug scandal in the 90s where Juventus were announced innocent by a sporting jury and cleared of all charges

gosplan

Yeah, that's the one but you've got it a bit arseways.

Juve weren't on trial, the club's director and doctor were.

The director was found innocent but the doctor was found guilty
(do we really need to write like this?)

Afterwards, in an appeal,the case was thrown out as it was declared impossible to prove a difference in footballing performance that would result from taking banned substances.

I love that fans translate this as the whole club being announced innocent by a sporting jury.

'Juve were caught, they blamed their doctor for everything and then used their influence to get him off' woudl be slightly more accurate.

I'll admitt that this does affect only a few of the players that were also hit by the match fixing scandal though, like Cannavaro(here's a video of me injecting my ass with something) and Del Piero(man did he bulk up).

Mr. Presentable

Partial, or slanted reporting is the bugbear here.

But look at this!

"The vast majority of the drugs in question were not on anyone's list of banned substances. They were, however, prescription drugs which were meant to treat illnesses or pathologies, not substances to be taken by healthy athletes. And here we get into an issue of medical ethics. Many athletes have taken similar substances to treat legitimate illnesses or conditions. Where do you draw the line? Should it be down to a doctor's conscience whether these drugs ought to be prescribed? Or should athletes be denied access to certain substances unless some kind of independent arbitrator can confirm that they are indeed necessary?

And how do you determine if treatment is necessary? One of the drugs liberally administered at Juventus during those years is normally used to treat depression. It would be common sense to assume that depression wasn't a team-wide problem. But how can anyone be sure? Should clubs subject their players to psychiatric evaluations in order to access the anti-psychotic drugs?

The point here is that it seems pretty obvious that Juventus violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. The only evidence that some sporting regulations may have been broken as well lies in the fact that internal drug tests revealed that some players had unnaturally high cell readings, suggesting that they may have been given the now notorious banned drug erythropoietin (EPO). But no EPO was found on Juve's premises and not a single Juventus player failed a drug test between 1994 and 1998."

Full article http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/gabriele_marcotti/12/07/juventus.doping/index.html

EPO was banned in 2000

For the sake of clarity, yes I am a Juve fan. I'm not, however blind to their wrongs, but would like to see fair representation of them. (btw, on the subject of bulking, Roy Keane after joining MU, and note his vicious temperament. Is that evidence of something too?)

SpAcEd OuT

gosplan wrote:

Yeah, that's the one but you've got it a bit arseways.

Juve weren't on trial, the club's director and doctor were.

The director was found innocent but the doctor was found guilty
(do we really need to write like this?)

Afterwards, in an appeal,the case was thrown out as it was declared impossible to prove a difference in footballing performance that would result from taking banned substances.

I love that fans translate this as the whole club being announced innocent by a sporting jury.

'Juve were caught, they blamed their doctor for everything and then used their influence to get him off' woudl be slightly more accurate.

I'll admitt that this does affect only a few of the players that were also hit by the match fixing scandal though, like Cannavaro(here's a video of me injecting my ass with something) and Del Piero(man did he bulk up).

Yeah the Juventus doctor was guilty of handing out prescription meds that didnt improve performace, how was this cheating

the subtance Cannavaro was taking at half time [while he was at Parma I might add] was perfectly legal at the time that video was made and just because Del Piero bulked up doesnt mean hes on something, is Ronaldo on something as well then

you'd swear that the Juventus doctor was found guilty of handing out steroids and EPO, it was actually anti depression tablets, sleep aids etc.

gosplan

Ok ok, maybe we should let this one drift.

I say 'nothings proven' and you say 'nothings happened'.

IMO Juve weren't the only ones bulking up their players. I'm not sure about Roy Keane but I've seen some physiques change far to rapidly for it to be simple weight training. I once talked to a sports physician and he advised me that usually if someone looks suspiciously bulky or changes rapidly you're correct to assume things. The scary thing is that that covers an awful lot of players.

Regardless of Juve being guilty ot not guilty I think the sports illus article hits the nail on the head when it talks about sporting ethics.

Over the last few years Juve have been outed as a club who will do pretty much anything to win. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are dodgy dealings in other clubs as well(i.e. EPO in the premiership) but it's quite obvious that for the last ten years the club has been corrupt from the top to the bottom.

My oringial point(about the players not being totally innocent) was made because it frustrates me when fans tow the clubs line. When an organisation is corrupt, it's corrupt all over. When anything comes to court you only admit to what can be actually proven. This is why we get stories of a doctor who self-medicated the team with performance enhancing substances, a general manager who was connected to but really had very little involvement in the match fixing scandal and so on.

One of my favourite ones was the telephone call(think it might have been with Milan in this years scandal) where someone admitted that their involvement was just listening to one call once...and not actually saying anything.

Like I said.....what can be proven.

I guess that I'd hope football fans would see through the lie and realise that this stuff is like an iceberg...you can only see a tiny portion.

Everyone in Itaian football knew about these problems in Juve so I pretty much assume that the players knew or had some part in them.

I mean it's like Arsne Wenger and his 'I didn't see it' policy.

Nalz

IMO Juventus should be in Serie C...why you say? retorical question

eirebhoy

Trilla wrote:

IMO Juventus should be in Serie C...why you say? retorical question

I would actually like to know your answer for that.

Mr. Presentable

Now third from bottom and rising. Tough one today though.

http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/btable.html