Pavel Nedved è turbato: povero, non voleva vedere Ibra sul pullman. E poi gli ha fatto tanto tanto dispiacere sentire gli interisti che dicevano di aver vinto senza rubare. "Non si può mettere in dubbio che fossimo i più forti, abbiamo vinto sul campo" ha tuonato il "drago di Cheb". Ho deciso di rivolgermi direttamente a lui.

Caro Pavel, ora non vorremmo essere troppo crudeli nei tuoi confronti, è umano cercare di difendere la propria carriera professionale. Certo non è bello scoprire che le proprie vittorie non sono proprio tutte genuine, ovviamente non è come se io vincessi il Pulitzer per questo post e scoprissi che le votazioni sono tutte truccate, ma chi gioca o ha giocato a calcio sa che certe situazioni si percepiscono. Sacchi ultimamente ha detto "sapevamo di lottare contro una grande squadra, ma anche contro qualcosa di più forte, di esterno", forse ci si accorge di questo solo quando i poteri forti remano contro? L'atteggiamento di un arbitro non è chiaro?

Dai, Pavel, quante volte ti abbiamo visto dopo un falletto subito, rotolare per una decina di metri tenendoti la gamba come se fosse stata amputata, aspettando fiducioso nel cartellino per il tuo avversario per poi rialzarti più baldanzoso di prima? Ti ricordi quel 5 ottobre 2003, stavi giocando contro il Bologna al Delle Alpi, Zambrotta cadeva a terra e l'arbitro vi assegnava un rigore che non c'era? Ti ricordi il volto smarrito di Zambrotta, roso dal dubbio se dire o no all'arbitro che si era buttato. Ricordi, Pavel, che andasti a bloccare Gianluca, a dirgli che non era il caso in quel momento così delicato di parlare con l'arbitro? Lo convincesti, da bravo sportivo, a dirgli che il rigore c'era, e vinceste col Bologna 2-1.

Eppure, Pavel, alla Lazio non eri così, molti qui a Roma ti ricordano, oltre che per la generosità, per la tua sportività. C'è una scuola di 'stile Juve' a Torino, per caso? E poi, sicuro che dal campo non si capisca come vanno le cose? Non si capisce l'atteggiamento di un arbitro? A me sembra -sembra- che quest'anno le cose siano cambiate, dopo Calciopoli la Juve è trattata come le altre. Non è favorita, ma nemmeno sfavorita. E se prima non percepivate il trattamento di favore, com'è che ora un trattamento equo lo considerate sfavorevole? Pavel, hai dimostrato con le scene isteriche di Genova che ti costarono cinque giornate di squalifica, che a certe decisioni non eri abituato. Anche Del Piero, a quanto pare, è tutto l'anno che è nervoso quando parla con gli arbitri...

E va beh, dai, tornerete in serie A e prima o poi riprenderete a vincere. Spero per te faccia in tempo a vivere dei nuovi successi in maglia bianconera, visto che hai 35 anni ma non pensi di lasciare. Però non venire a dire che in passato eravate tanto più forti degli altri da non aver bisogno di aiuti, nel 2006 avete vinto per 3 punti, nel 2005 (l'unico anno sotto indagine, anche se probabilmente non è l'unico irregolare) per 7, non sono molti se consideriamo le 38 giornate. E non ti arrabbiare se vedi dei tuoi colleghi festeggiare uno scudetto, visto che quando è stato il momento l'hai fatto anche tu!

Last Saturday Juventus was in Vicenza and 20’ before the end of the match it was 2-0 ahead. In just six minutes, Greek defender Evangelois Nastos and youngster Gabriele Paonessa scored for the draw, and the Bianconeri had no reaction and the only occasion was a free kick that Del Piero threw away. After Napoli’s win behind closed doors, Juve is still first but the Azzurri reached them on the top.

Trezeguet and Camoranesi left out, a defence that is still the second in all Serie B but doesn’t work as it should in the away games are the reasons why French coach is on trial. Deschamps talked yesterday to his players, but no one of the board of directors were present. For some media, Deschamps’ position is bad, some of them points out Marcello Lippi as his successor even before June.

We think that after Calciopoli, all that happens around Juventus has been amplified. The Turin club is not playing good football, but chances to be promoted are still high and many players are injured or are about to come back. And new executives, despite the announces on the newspapers, are really working in order to have a competitive team, at least for fourth place, in next year’s Serie A. And we think that will make it.

Another good news in this bad period for Juve, is that the new stadium project has been approved by the board of directors and will be submitted to FIGC. The new stadium, built on the old “Delle Alpi”, will have 45000 seats and will be ready for –eventually, if Italy will be designated on April 18th- Euro 2012.

Friday night, a few hours after the death of policeman Filippo Raciti outside Catania stadium, we wrote a post that ended with these words: "But we bet that the executives will think long and hard, and still do nothing effective. In the end, maybe they will decide that it will be possible to watch football only on TV; on the channels they own, of course." I am sorry, but maybe I was right: the decree law issued by the Government in the afternoon confirmed that in stadiums not meeting requirements of the existing law will be played only behindclosed doors matches. All waivers are not valid anymore. We are still waiting (tomorrow) the list of the games that will be played with viewers and the ones that we'll watch on TV only. A few days ago, Tv broadcaster Mediaset prosecuted Italian League because -they say- Serie A is poor, compared to last years.

In general, Italy confirms of being a country where problems are not foreseen, and at the end comes out as an emercency that has to be solved urgently. Reason is banned, especially in football. It happened in 1950, for example, when the national team travelled to Brazil for the World Cup by boat, because one year before there had been the air crash in Superga where the "Grande Torino" was cancelled. Or, from time to time, after our national team's worst defeats, we've always decided to stop signing foreign players, blaming them for our bad results. And now, this decision: it could make sense if there were big responsabilities of Italian clubs, but who authorized them to play in unsafety? Who decided that a risky match shoud have been payed at 6 pm, on Friday? The same persons that now are stopping the game. Yesterday we wrote a post against presidents, but we think everybody is appearing in a bad light.

Let's see what happens, especially which stadiums will be available fo viewers. Ther will be surely legal appeals, as some measures (preventing interdiction to dangerous people) seem to be uncostitutional. Let us be a little bit pessimistic. Next weekend we'll have Serie A again, but it won't be the same thing, for players and, most of all, for fans.

Friday: indignation. Saturday: it's absurd to die for a football match. Sunday: safety is our first priority. Monday: closed doors if stadium does not fit "Legge Pisanu" requirements. Tuesday: play behind closed doors is fascism. This is how the state of mind of some Italian clubs' presidents has changed in four days. Yesterday Mr. Matarrese, their no.1, had an interview with 'Radio Capital' where he said that "show must go on and one man's death is something that may happen", creating a big controversy where everybody is against everybody. Palermo chairman, Maurizio Zamparini, was asking his resignment, but the 71 y.o. man, that 20 years ago was already FIGC president, is still there. A meeting among the executives and another one between them and FIGC have been held yesterday: the result is that Government's hard line has won.

The only certainties are: just four stadiums (Rome, Turin, Palermo and Siena) meet safety standards, some other (Milan, for example) just need some adjustments, a few others are extremely far to meet requirements; next weekend they could play games valid for day 23 in Serie A, while the games not played last weekend will be ricovered maybe in the middle of April (18?). The bad news is that yesterday, after the solidarity and all good intentions of the last three days, some of them was contrary to closed door matches. Aurelio De Laurentiis of Napoli (serie B) is outspoken: "This is fascism, they cannot impose it. We could decide not to play, why shoud we do it if there are no safety guarantees?". Lazio president Lotito, whose stadium is by law and who is living under escort as he fights the phenomenon "ultras", tried to mediate different positions, in order to have an unique point of view. Everybody agrees that serie A wouldn't be regular. But they lost.

Anyway, majority of clubs would like to play with public, but as we said only 4 stadiums are ok. For example, Verona stadium "Bentegodi" (where next Sunday we'll have Chievo-Inter) needs interventions for more than one million euros. And, last but not least, all these stadiums are owned by minicipalities, meaning that they have to farm out works with a competitive tender, so it will take a long time to have stadiums by law. Let's see what will be in the next few days, council of ministers will decide tomorrow if next weekend thay will play, and what are the conditions. The Government will decide, football is not indipendent anymore. Don't know if it's good or bad...

No later than five months ago, Juventus’ CEO Blanc said to sport newspaper “La Gazzetta dello Sport” that “Juventus cycle has finished and it will take 4 or 5 years to build a winning team: it’s not lack of ambition, it’s realism”. After that, Vieira, Ibrahimovic, Fifa World Player Cannavaro, Emerson and coach Capello left the club. Oil company Tamoil terminated the 10 years sponsorship contract due to Calciopoli scandal, causing to Juve a loss of more than 100 million Euros. The Bianconeri also lost UEFA money as they couldn’t play in Champions League, and everyday we read interviews where players talk about their future far from Turin.

Well, Mr. Blanc, the same person who said this in August, now has suddenly changed his mind. “Juve is the leading team, and Buffon is its key-player” we read today in “Tuttosport”, Turin sport newspaper. “We do not say how much money we’ll spend, not to give advantages to competitors, but we’ll compete very soon for Scudetto”. Well, maybe Blanc forgets last Buffon’s words just few days ago, saying that Juve will be great also without him. Even Del Piero had some interviews. Nobody had any doubt about the captain’s fidelity to black and white colours, but two days ago his fans were frozen over by these words: “Who says I’ll stay at Juve? They are definitely wrong”.

Despite nobody is sure Juventus’ top player will stay, and uncertainty about the future is on top of their thoughts, everyday you can read in newspapers a big list of players that would be joining Juventus. Mascherano, Grygera, Cassano, Cristiano Ronaldo, Huntelaar is just a selected choice of names written in newspapers and magazines front pages. Some of them even for January transfer session, some of them at the end of the season. It is quite impossible those players –except, maybe, Grygera- will join the Bianconeri, at least in January: so, why are they giving us this kind of news?

The truth is that 14 millions of Juventus fans in Italy represent a big amount of potential readers and consumers. They need to dream of something after that Calciopoli, Serie B relegation and top players’ departure depressed them. First of all, they have been convinced that Calciopoli wasn’t the right punishment for Moggi and Giraudo match-fixing, but a conspiracy planned by Inter Chairman Moratti, together with former FIGC commissioner Guido Rossi and Telecom Italia, charged to have ignored wiretaps about Inter Milan. And now the illusion of a top player for the “Old Lady” even in serie B. We hope we are wrong, maybe we’ll see one of them with the black and white jersey, but we have a doubt: who’s making fun of Juve fans?

Tonight at 8.45PM (GMT +1), at “Luigi Ferraris” stadium in Genoa, there's a part of the Italian football history. Genoa vs. Juventus Turin is not only an important match for the promotion in Serie A, it’s also a total of 36 titles won by the two teams together.

Genoa in particular is the oldest existing Italian club, founded in 1893 by some Englishmen living there for working reasons. There was a doctor like J.B. Spensley, D.G. Fawcus (a manager in a textile firm) and most of all Charles Alfred Payton, British Consul in Genoa: they were pioneers in an unexplored country. The difference between Genoa and Juventus is that the Genoans won their 9 “scudetti” between 1898 and 1924, while Juve –founded in 1897 by a group of students- continued winning until last years. This doesn’t allow us to forget why these two glorious teams are now laying in second division.

Genoa, after its “golden age”, started going up and down between Serie A and Serie B, touching its lowest point a couple of years ago, when the “rosso-blu” won serie B but at the end they were relegated in third division due to a match fixing. Everybody knows what happened last summer to Juventus. Bianconeri were not only relegated with 30 points of penalization (then turned into 9), but their last two titles have also been revoked: the first not assigned at all, the second one assigned to Inter Milan.

Anyway, it’s a good thing that –despite the scandals- this year Serie B increased its average attendance: that’s not only because of Juve (the “bianconeri” recently moved to Olympic Stadium with 24000 seats capacity), but also other big cities’ teams full of history such as Bologna, Naples, Genoa are giving their contribution. Serie B is still far from the successful English second league, the “Championship”, which is the fifth league in Europe for attendance and turnover, but everybody in Italy hopes that this will be a good season, after years of depression.

Just a curiosity: two days ago in the official Juventus website (www.juventus.com) in the presentation of the match it was written that it is very important for the "scudetto". Then it has been updated, then they changed the word scudetto into "promotion"...