Angry at the work he was seeing from his players both in their previous few matches and in that moment on the training ground, Juventus coach Max Allegri had clearly had enough. “Mentality... it’s not a matter of technique, it’s a matter of brains,” he yelled, visibly annoyed at the lack of concentration shown by his expensively assembled squad. “The desire to improve every day, that’s what makes the difference!”
Part of an exclusive new behind-the-scenes series from Netflix, it was a short scene from the Vinovo training complex just outside of Turin, one it would have been easy to miss among the many interesting insights into the normal day-to-day lives of the club’s millionaire stars and picturesque shots of the underappreciated but beautiful Italian city.
Indeed, on the surface, footage of Miralem Pjanić chatting away in French to his young son Edin during a school run or Claudio Marchisio making coffee using a traditional stove-top pot and being hit with an avalanche of foam bullets from his son’s nerf gun seems far more enjoyable and revealing.
But for those watching closely after the first three episodes were released over the weekend, that brief clip of the coach and his opinion was one of many that hinted at a burning and tangible desire for even greater success. From Mattia De Sciglio announcing he would rather lift the Champions League trophy with Juve than the World Cup with Italy, to Allegri’s confession he almost walked away from the club after their defeat in last season’s European showpiece, every few minutes, references to that elite competition come to the fore.
Nine times the Bianconeri have made it to the final hurdle in the hunt for the “cup with the big ears,” falling short on seven occasions. A blood-stained triumph at Heysel in 1985 and a victory over Ajax on penalties in 1996 seem both scant consolation and to have happened in another lifetime for everyone connected to Italian football’s grand Old Lady. Yet if “Juventus: First Team” shows one thing clearest, it is that the current team is legitimately obsessed with adding a third Champions League trophy to her otherwise impressive collection of silverware.
On screen, the protagonists attempt to downplay the significance of a victory in that competition. President Andrea Agnelli tells the squad that making it their sole objective would be counterintuitive, Allegri has repeatedly insisted that a seventh consecutive Serie A title is the priority, but watching those unguarded moments play out hints at a very different truth. It should not be a surprise; fans of Juventus feel exactly the same way.
They might not be bored of marching to the Scudetto every May but they would certainly opt for a celebration in Kiev rather than Chievo following the conclusion of the 2017/18 campaign. The tv series does show that the Bianconeri have returned to being an elite club however, one worthy of such attention as a club official explained following the release of those first episodes.“
It was Netflix who sought us out, as they wanted to make a documentary on the world of football and evaluated various options. They were interested in our story and we guaranteed a certain type of access,” Juventus Co-Chief Revenue Officer Federico Palomba said in an interview with the JuveNews website. “It wasn’t about getting paid, but the value of exposure on a platform with over 110 million subscribers all over the world, including half of them in the United States, is priceless.”
It is, but while watching Gonzalo Higuain explain that he trims his beard every 15 days was an intriguing nugget of previously unknown information, it was the constant thirst for Champions League success that offered perhaps the greatest glimpse into what life is like for those who chose to represent Italy’s most successful club.
“Juventus: First Team” is looking like a superb docu-series, but “Juventus: Champions League Winners” is the show they’d all rather see.
