It all started on the bench

It all started when a group of teenagers from D'Azeglio High School in Turin decided to form a soccer club. Legend has it that on November 1, 1897, a group of youngsters sat on an old bench, on a street called Corsa Re Umberto and started a soccer club. It later became one of the most historical and successful clubs in Europe. 

The club name was taken from the Latin word "juventus" which means youth. Ironically, later on, the club was given the nickname of The Old Lady. Juventus wore pink jerseys until 1903. in that year the club imported their jerseys from England, but by mistake, Notts County' s jerseys were send to Juventus and since then the official colors of the club has been black and white. Juventus won their first Italian championship under the leadership of their Swiss president called Alfredo Dick. Alfredo soon resigned and started a new soccer club which was called Turin FC. Later on, in the early 30s Juventus had became the first club to win five Italian championships in a row. After a decade, their rivals, Turin FC, won five championships in a row, equaling Juventus record. Now, after nearly a century, Juventus and Turin FC, the Turin city clubs, are the only Italian clubs that have won five league championships in a row.

          

The Agnelli Family era started when Eduardo Agnelli, an Italian businessman, bought the club in 1923. Eduardo son of the founder of the Fiat company died tragically in plane crash in 1935. Juventus spend a dry twelve years without success until Giovanni Agnelli, Eduardo's son, took the helm in 1947. Giovanni, the Godfather of Juventus, took an oath to bring back the lost glory of the club and he did. Umberto Angelli, Giovanni's younger brother, took the helm in 1955 to lead the club to more success until he stepped down 1962. After nine years the Angelli Family decided to appoint Giampiero Boniperti, a former player in the club, as the president. The sport media in Italy were surprised, some of them described the decision as reckless and ridiculous. To prove that they were wrong, Boniperti led the club to become the first European club that earn all official tournaments, locally and internationally. In 1985 the Union of European Football Associations gave Juventus a honorary trophy called the " Winners Cup,". Since then, Juventus have been known as the club of the planet (Smyth, Rob 2012).

In 2006 the "Calciopoli" conspiracy rocked the Italian peninsula. Many Italian clubs were accused of game fixing and the Old Lady was one of them. After only two weeks of trails Juventus director, Luciano Moggi, was sentence of to a five year ban from the sport, and juventus was stripped of  their last two Italian league titles. To make the situation even worse the Italian Football Federation's prosecutor send Juventus to the lower league " Seria B", causing many famous soccer players to leave the club, except five players who the fans later on gave them the nickname of "The Faithful Five". Many fans around the globe were devastated, in fact Pessotto, a former Juventus player,  jumped from the third floor of a building, but luckily he survived. After a dark season in the Seria B, Juventus was regulated to the Italian league " Seria A" to return to their normal place (Sulejmani, Arber 2011).

 

In 2010, after four years of failure, Eduardo Agnelli's grandson, Andrea, took the helm, promising the fans that the club will claim its throne. After a year of the glorious return of the Agnelli family Juventus won the Italian league in an epic season. The former Juventus player Antonio Conte,  who is now the club's manger, led Juventus to won the Italian league without losing any match. At last, Juvenuts is back, but another conspiracy is looming on the horizon, will they leave Juventus alone? I don’t think so (Richardson, James 2012) 

  --> Smyth, Rob. "A brief history of Juventus" soccernet.espn.go.com. Posted July 5, 2012  http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature/_/id/841135?cc=5901

  --> Sulejmani, Arber. "Calciopoli: Italy's greatest moral hour, or Inter's greatest revenge ?" http://juvefc.com. Posted 4th October 2011. http://juvefc.com/articles/0006juvecalciopoli.html

  --> Richardson, James " Latest Italian match-fixing scandal met with both fury and weary resignation" The Guardian. Posted May 28 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/28/italian-match-fixing-fury-resignation