Alphabet Challenge | Part 24, Club 11 | Big-Spending Juventus Chase First Scudetto In 25 Years

Juventus enjoyed an improved campaign after Trebor Mathal cleared out the old boys and brought some young talent into the Old Lady. But the Zambian was keen to keep improving a squad that lacked in certain areas to close the gap to Italy’s elite and bid to end Juve’s 25-year wait for a Scudetto.

Mahtal’s efforts at Juve saw big clubs show an interest, including Chelsea offering him their vacant role. But the finances weren’t great while Juve had a huge £155m in the transfer kitty, which was boosted by selling eight players for £34m. Mahtal invested most of that money in the team’s biggest weakness at holding midfield, spending up to £100m on his former West Ham man Dawid Szymanski. He was joined by Mexican wonderkid striker Jorge Rojas, midfielders Andrei Pereira Bispo and Tobias Westin from Internacional and Norrkoping for £17m and £1.7m, wonderkid defender Henrique Ribeiro for £27.5m from Atalanta and goalkeeper Andrea Zitti for £11m from Spurs. Mahtal also promoted recent academy graduate Fabio Abbruzzese to cover at centre back and wing back.

Mahtal initially stuck with a 3-5-2 approach that he wasn’t overly convinced with, but leaned towards introducing a more adventurous 4-3-3. The latter allows midfielder Sreten Colaric a little more freedom with 6ft 3in Ribeiro playing as an inverted full back to create a dummy three at the back.

Hoping For Progression At Juve

The bookies still don’t fancy Juve’s chances this season, predicting a 7th place finish with 20/1 title odds. Inter and AC Milan are joint 13/5 favorites with holders Roma at 13/2 followed by Parma (9/1), Torino (11/1) and Napoli (14/1). But Mahtal knew he had a much better team than Parma and Torino, so he didn’t read too much into those odds.

They began with a trip to Palermo and dominated, with striker Pascal Ngomba scoring after 8 minutes, Ribeiro heading home a debut goal and playmaker Karthik Singh wrapping up an easy 3-0 win. Szymanski laid on both goals in a 2-1 win at home to Lazio before getting dominated in a 2-0 defeat at Inter, who Thiago Motta just quit to oddly move to Nice and was replaced by Man City’s regen manager. A fairly tricky start continued by drawing 1-1 with Torino then beating Parma 3-0, in which Abbruzzese’s late header made him the youngest-ever Serie A scorer aged 16 years 8 days.

But Mahtal wasn’t 100% happy with the start, so he switched to the 4-3-3 ahead of a trip to Frosinone, and it began with a 1-0 win. It was also going well at Napoli as Ngomba’s brace had them 2-1 up only for goalkeeper Ivano Di Giaccobe to let two goals in. Striker Gastón Díaz scored twice in a comfortable win at home to Genoa, which kickstarted a run of four successive wins before drawing 2-2 at home to Mahtal’s former side Roma. But they hit top form as homegrown winger Stefano Fabbro’s first-half brace inspired a 3-1 win at Milan, which sent Juve top of Serie A for the first time after 14 games. Díaz and Colaric both scored twice in a 5-0 hammering of Spezia and they continued to impress, winning three of the next four games 2-0 to take a 6-point lead into the new year.

Tough Champions League Fixtures

Mahtal would rather have played in the Europa or Conference League than the Champions League, which was strengthened by a tricky set of group fixtures. Rojas earned a point at home to Stuttgart and an own goal by Mahtal’s former Man United full back Elias Clerc handed them a surprise 1-0 win at Chelsea. Winger Viktor Belezyako inspired a 3-1 win at home to Ajax and Rojas edged a rotated side a 1-0 win over Maribor. Now it got more tricky as they lost 3-2 at Newcastle, 2-0 at home to Mahtal’s former team Man United and a rotated team lost 3-1 at Bayern. But Díaz’s brace secured a 3-1 win at Young Boys to finish 16th. They annoyingly drew Milan in the playoff and a 2-1 home defeat meant a 3-2 exit.

Stuttering Serie A Title Battle

Mahtal rotated for a Copa Italia clash with Torino and was made to pay as they lost 2-1, meaning all their eggs were in the Serie A basket. Juve began 2045 with a trip to 2nd-place Lazio and a solid defensive effort and Ngomba’s brilliant late backpost header secured a huge 1-0 win. But a strong run of form fell apart as another shocking Di Giaccobe performance handed 4th-place Inter a 2-1 win with both their shots on target.

They recovered with Rojas’ strike gaining revenge on Torino and an easy 3-0 win at home to Frosinone, before a surprise 4-1 thumping at a strong Sassuolo and a 2-1 defeat at Parma. Those results had Mahtal concerned, so he switched to a more conventional 4-3-3 with Colaric playing from the right and Díaz dropping back into midfield, which started well with Ngomba, Fabbro and Díaz securing a 3-1 win over Napoli and a dominant 6-0 win at bottom-side Genoa with six different scorers. Juve weren’t alone in dropping points, and those two victories took them 10 points clear of Milan and Inter with 10 to play.

Juve made it back-to-back 6-0 wins as Ngomba’s brilliant hat trick put 18th-place Udinese to the sword before sneaking a 2-1 win at Verona. Attackr Magnus Bjortuft took advantage of a few injuries by scoring twice on just his second start of the season to inspire a 4-0 win over Cagliari and move his side 13 points clear. Two huge games followed as Mahtal headed back to Roma and held them to a 2-2 then entertained 2nd-place Milan in a potential title decider. Juve started terribly, gifting Milan an opener then missing two sitters. Mahtal laid into the team at the break and got a swift response as Colaric drilled in an equaliser from a narrow angle and they were a little disappointed to only draw. But that moved them a step closer to the title, staying 11 points clear with five games remaining.

The title hunt took a hit as Juve slipped to a 2-1 defeat at Spezia thanks to more awful goalkeeping, but Fabbro fired them closer as his second-half hat trick downed struggling Empoli 3-0. That gave Mahtal a chance to win his second Serie A title at his former stomping ground of Atalanta but, despite having the best of the game, they never really got going. That was until the 95th minute as Pereira Bispo picked the ball up 25 yards out and curled in a beauty to win the title with his first Juventus goal.

Juventus won their 38th Serie A, but their first for 25 years!

Juve went on to beat Monza 2-1 and Colaric scored the only goal at Fiorentina on the final day. That saw them top the league with 88 points after 28 wins, 4 draws and 6 defeats, scoring 83 and only conceding 29. Midfielder Karthik Singh led the league with 17 assists and Ngomba, who won the brilliant Premo Gentleman award as he didn’t pick up a single booking all season, was the 3rd-top scorer with 20.

Mahtal Celebrates More Italian Success

Mahtal ticked off the 9th letter of his Alphabet Challenge by winning the Italian title for the second time, five years on from winning it with Roma. This season’s star man was probably Ngomba with 25 goals and 9 assists, pushed close by Singh (18 assists), Díaz (15 goals and 10 assists), Fabbro (15 goals and 7 assists) and Colaric (12 goals and 6 assists).

The potential at Juve was confirmed by two of this season’s signings Rojas and Ribeiro coming 1st and 3rd on NxGn 2045, along with Bjortuft 9th and Westin 32nd.

However, Mahtal wouldn’t be around to see that potential fulfilled as he knew he had to move on from Turin after ticking J off the challenge list. He departs Juve after 90 games in charge, of which he won 54, drew 15 and lost 21, scoring 179 and conceding 93.