Football
ESPN staff 9y

Massimiliano Allegri: Juventus need ingenuity to compete for global stars

Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri has told The Guardian that Italian clubs must use their "ingenuity" to try to compensate for the financial power of their English and Spanish counterparts.

Serie A has suffered a dip in popularity in recent years, and there are discussions now taking place over the prospect that top-flight matches could be played around the globe to try to increase both interest and revenue.

Despite Italian football's struggles, reigning champions Juventus have managed to attract global stars such as Carlos Tevez, Paul Pogba and Arturo Vidal, and they remain in contention for this season's Champions League after brushing Borussia Dortmund aside with a 5-1 aggregate victory in the round of 16.

Former AC Milan boss Allegri, who replaced Antonio Conte in the summer, said: "The difference in economic potential between clubs in Italy, those in England, or the big two in Spain is very high.

"To reduce this gap we need to use our ingenuity. We need to go out and find talented young players, we need to have a solid core of Italian players on which to build -- as Juventus does -- and then we need foreigners who can provide a really high technical quality to the group.

"Above all Juventus has had the opportunity, and the skill, to land a Tevez, a Pogba, a Vidal and this year also [Roberto] Pereyra from Udinese."

Juve are likely to face a battle to hold onto many of their stars, with Tevez repeatedly talking of a desire to return to Boca Juniors at some stage, Pogba regularly linked with some of Europe's biggest clubs, and Vidal having attracted the attention of Manchester United last summer.

Allegri, though, said he is determined that Juve "establish itself as one of the top eight clubs in Europe." Conte had led the Bianconeri to three successive Serie A titles but Allegri said he felt the team, who exited the Champions League at the group stage last season, were capable of more.

"When Juventus called me, I didn't have to think about it," he said. "I already had some clear ideas about what their potential was. It was a team that still had lots to give and lots of room to improve."

Allegri, who spent two months in London after he was sacked by AC Milan in 2014, has already declared an interest in working in the Premier League but he said he did not view it as superior to the Italian top flight.

He said: "We need to start from a presupposition -- namely that there is no 'better' football and no 'worse' kind of football, just different styles and cultures that belong to each country."

He added: "Nobody should imagine that they could go to England and change the way that football is played there. Just as nobody should imagine that they could come to Italy and change the culture or the DNA of Italian football. Or even the DNA of the club where they work."

^ Back to Top ^