Kings Kisinen: Juventus Football Club

Juventus Football Club (BIT: JUVE) (from Latin iuventus: youth), commonly referred to as Juventus and colloquially as Juve, are a professional Italian football club based in Turin, Piedmont. The club is the third oldest of its kind in the country and has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 2006–07 season, in the top flight First Division (knowns as Serie A since 1929).

Founded in 1897 as Sport Club Juventus by a group of Torinese young students and linked to industrial Agnelli family since 1923, the club has become a symbol of Italian culture and italianità (Italianity),reflected, among others, in its contribution to the national team, uninterrupted since the second half of 1920s and recognised as one of the largest and most important in the world, and, due to ideological politics and socio-economic origin of the club's sympathisers and their massive presence of all over the country and, abroad, mainly in countries with a significant presence of Italian immigrants, through its fan base, larger than any other Italian club and one of the largest world-wide.

Juventus are historically the most successful team in Italian football and one of the most successful and recognised in the world. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an organization recognised by FIFA, Juventus were Italy's best club of the 20th century and the second most successful European club in the same period. The club currently ranks third in Europe and sixth in the world with the most international titles won officially recognised by their respective association football confederation and FIFA.

In 1985, Juventus became the first club in the history of European football to have won all three major UEFA competitions, the European Champion Clubs' Cup, the (now-defunct) UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup (first Italian and Southern European side to win the competition). After their triumph in the Intercontinental Cup the same year, Juventus also became the first football team ever remain the only one at present to have won all possible confederation competitions and the club world title.

Juventus have played in black and white striped shirts, with white shorts, sometimes black shorts since 1903. Originally, they played in pink shirts with a black tie, but only because they had been sent the wrong shirts. The father of one of the players made the earliest shirts, but continual washing faded the colour so much that in 1903 the club sought to replace them. Juventus asked one of their team members, Englishman John Savage, if he had any contacts in England who could supply new shirts in a color that would better withstand the elements.

He had a friend who lived in Nottingham, who being a Notts County supporter, shipped out the black and white striped shirts to Turin. Juve have worn the shirts ever since, considering the colors to be aggressive and powerful. Juventus Football Club's official emblem has undergone different and small modifications since the 1920s. The last modification of the Old Lady's badge took place before 2004–05 season. At the present time, the emblem of the team is a black-and-white oval shield of a type used by Italian ecclesiastics. It is divided in five vertical stripes: two white stripes and three black stripes, inside which are the following elements; in its upper section, the name of the society superimposed on a white convex section, over golden curvature (gold for honour).

The white silhouette of a charging bull is in the lower section of the oval shield, superimposed on a black old French shield; the charging bull is a symbol of the Comune di Torino. There is also a black silhouette of a mural crown above the black spherical triangle's base is a reminiscence to Augusta Tourinorum, the old city of the Roman era which the present capital of Piedmont region is its cultural heiress. In the past, the convex section of the emblem had a blue color (another symbol of Turin) and, furthermore, its shape was concave. The old French shield and the mural crown, also in the lower section of the emblem, had a considerably greater size with respect to the present.

The two Golden Stars for Sport Excellence were located above the convex and concave section of Juventus' emblem. During the 1980s, the club emblem was the silhouette of a zebra, to both sides of the equide's head, the two golden stars and, above this badge, forming an arc, the club's name. During its history, the club has acquired a number of nicknames, la Vecchia Signora (the Old Lady) being the best example. The "old" part of the nickname is a pun on Juventus which means "youth" in Latin. It was derived from the age of the Juventus star players towards the middle of 1930s. The "lady" part of the nickname is how fans of the club affectionately referred to it before the 1930s.

The club is also nicknamed la Fidanzata d'Italia (the Girlfriend of Italy), because over the years it has received a high level of support from Southern Italian immigrant workers (particularly from Naples and Palermo), who arrived in Turin to work for FIAT since the 1930s. Other nicknames include; i bianconeri (the black-and-whites),le zebre (the zebras) in reference to Juventus' colors and i gobbi (the hunchbacks), because "old ladies" usually have hunched backs.

The Trapattoni-era was highly successful in the 1980s; the club started the decade off well, winning the league title three more times by 1984. This meant Juventus had won 20 Italian league titles and were allowed to add a second golden star to their shirt, thus becoming the only Italian club to achieve this. Around this time the club's players were attracting considerable attention; Paolo Rossi was named European Footballer of the Year following his contribution to Italy's victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, where he was named player of the tournament. Frenchman Michel Platini was also awarded the European Footballer of the Year title for three years in a row; 1983, 1984 and 1985, which is a record.

Juventus are the only club to have players from their club winning the award in four consecutive years. Indeed it was Platini who scored the winning goal in the 1985 European Cup final against Liverpool, however this was marred by a tragedy which changed European football. The Heysel Stadium disaster, in which 39 people (mostly Juventus fans) were killed when a stadium wall collapsed, has been called by UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson in 2004, "the darkest hour in the history of the UEFA competitions", and resulted in the banning of all English clubs from European competition. With the exception of winning the closely contested Italian Championship of 1985–86, the rest of the 1980s were not very successful for the club.

As well as having to contend with Diego Maradona's Napoli, both of the Milanese clubs, Milan and Internazionale, won Italian championships. In 1990, Juventus moved into their new home, the Stadio delle Alpi, which was built for the 1990 World Cup. The Juventus youth set-up has been recognised as one of the best in Italy for producing young talents. While not all graduates made it to the first team, many have enjoyed successful careers in the Italian top flight. Under long-time coach Vincenzo Chiarenza, the Primavera (Under-20) squad enjoyed one of its successful periods, winning all age-group competitions from 2004 to 2006.

The youth system is also notable for its contribution to the Italian national senior and youth teams. 1934 World Cup winner Gianpiero Combi, 1936 Gold Medal and 1938 World Cup winner Pietro Rava, Giampiero Boniperti, Roberto Bettega, 1982 World Cup hero Paolo Rossi and more recently, Domenico Criscito and Claudio Marchisio are a number of former graduates who have been capped at the full international level. Like Dutch club Ajax and many English Premier League clubs, Juventus operates several satellite clubs and soccer schools outside of the country (i.e. United States, Canada, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Switzerland) and numerous camps in the local region to expand talent scouting.

After the first two years (1897 and 1898), during which Juventus played in the Parco del Valentino and Parco Cittadella, their matches were held in the Piazza d'Armi Stadium until 1908, except in 1905, the first year of the scudetto, and in 1906, years in which it played quickly Corso Re Umberto. From 1909 to 1922, Juventus played their internal competitions at Corso Sebastopoli Camp, and before moving the following year to Corso Marsiglia Camp where they remained until 1933, winning four league titles. At the end of 1933 they began to play at the new Stadio Mussolini stadium inaugurated for the 1934 World Championships. After the Second World War, the stadium was renamed as Stadio Comunale Vittorio Pozzo. Juventus played home matches at the ground for 57 years, a total of 890 league matches.

Since January 2001 Juventus Football Club is headquartered in an elegant building which is located at 32, Corso Galileo Ferraris, in Turin. Various offices spread over four floors. There are 75 workers who are divided in sections as follows: Administration – Commercial – Communications – Management – Planning, Supervision and Special Projects – Human Resources – Area Sports. Juventus are also used as a headquarters office location Juventus Merchandising, which manages licensing agreements on projects and also Juventus Soccer Schools. No part of office are offered to the public. Ticketing process was conducted in Corso Galileo Ferraris, but tickets can only be purchased through other channels, such as Lottomatica Stores and Juventus.com official website. Based on history, Juventus have been several times enter into the turn of the headquarters. The first time Juventus headquarters in Via Montevecchio in 1898. After a few brief periods at number 4, Via Piazzi (1899), 14 Via Gazometro (1900-1902), Via Pastrengo (1903-1904), 1 Via Donati (1905-1906), 43 Via Carlo Alberto (1919-1921), 16 via Botero (1921-1922), then some long-term thinking began triggered: First, starting from year 1923 through 1933, is located at the Corso Marsiglia ground, a place where teams compete at that time. For almost a decade (1934-1943), the club’s headquarters moved to 12 Via Bogino later, between 1944 and 1947, moved to 151 Corso IV Novembre (which is now the Circolo della Stampa).

After all these changes, since 1948 Juventus have only four “home”. In the period 1948 and 1964 in piazza San Carlo 206, then in 1965 changed its domicile to 54 Galleria San Federico, a place where they lived for 10 years before returning to change domicile, by reason of the capacity of the room, into an imposing building located at 7 Piazza Crimea. Since January 2001, this club again increased its number of employees and move into the residence was occupied at the time.

The team continued to host training sessions at the stadium until July 2003. From 1990 until the 2005–06 season, the Torinese side contested their home matches at Stadio delle Alpi, built for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, although in very rare circumstances, the club played some home games in other stadia such as Renzo Barbera at Palermo, Dino Manuzzi at Cesena and the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza at Milan. In August 2006, the bianconeri returned to play in the Stadio Comunale, now known as Stadio Olimpico, after the restructuring of the stadium for the 2006 Winter Olympics onwards. In November 2008 Juventus announced that they will invest around €100 million to build a new stadium on the site of the old Delle Alpi ground. Unlike the Delle Alpi there will not be a running track; instead the pitch will be only 8.5 meters away from the stands. The planned capacity is 41,000. Work began during spring 2009 and is scheduled for completion in time for the start of the 2011-12 season.