It’s the Champions League and once more the world will be looking at B6.
Juventus are coming to Villa Park for another one of those occasions that makes you wonder if you’re dreaming. Like that lot we beat the other week, we’ve played them in this competition before. In 1983 it was the European champions against most of Italy’s World Cup-winning team, with a couple of extras named Boniek and Platini thrown in. It also saw Claudio Gentile on the same pitch as Eamonn Deacy.
They beat us, and they’ve beat a few teams since then. In fact, since 1983 they’ve won Serie A sixteen times, eight Coppa Italias, two Champions Leagues, the Cup-Winners cup, two Europa Leagues and the World Club Championship twice. They didn’t win the Peace Cup, though. They’ve also been relegated due to a match-fixing scandal, banned from Europe after breaking some Uefa financial regulation and moved into then out of the Stadio delle Alpi. They’ve got a lot of supporters, most of whom live outside Turin. However, they don’t bear the name of the city; how they can put up with the shame is beyond me.
Unlike their 1983 team, the current Juventus squad isn’t exactly full of household names. They’ve got Douglas Luiz and that’s about it. They’re unbeaten in Serie A this season although they’ve drawn loads. We’ll have our usual collection of injuries and world-beaters. Their supporters will doubtless be round town all day, soaking up such traditional Brummie culture as the German market and that one on Pigeon Park with the bar that looks like it’s about to fall down.
It says a lot about the decline of Italian football and our own improvement that we’re favourites. The bookies think we’re going to beat Juventus, which is another Am I Dreaming? moment. Win this one and we’re pretty much certain of finishing in the top eight, which with three games to go will be worth shouting about, particularly in a season where we’ve never really got going yet. It won’t be easy but this is Villa Park, under the lights. You know what that means.
