It’s a collection which includes an unbeaten and one in which they broke the 100-point barrier. But ask the veterans of Juventus’ extraordinary run and they will say this is the sweetest of all.
“I think this is the most beautiful Scudetto by far because it was a demonstration of incredible strength,” Gianluigi Buffon told Mediaset. He later elaborated when speaking to Rai: “This is the most beautiful Scudetto because if the first was exciting because it was unexpected, this is exciting because it was so difficult… We had the idea of making a comeback even when we were 15th, but to do that we had to get our hands dirty and have pride.”
Napoli’s failure to win at Roma on Monday, coupled with Juve’s victory away to Fiorentina a day earlier, kept the Scudetto stitched on the Bianconeri shirt for another season. For the second time in the club’s history she has won five successive Scudetti, 80 years after the last occurrence. Only the legendary Grande Torino of the 1940s and Inter in the mid-2000s – Calciopoli-assisted – have also achieved such a feat.
The Quinquennio d’Oro outfit of the 1930s helped Juventus become the club it is today. As professional football took hold in the newly formed Serie A it was Juventus who took the competition by storm. Under the tutelage of Edoardo Agnelli the club became a powerhouse of Italian football. Nearly a century later, the current crop restored Juve’s place amongst football’s elite.
But the fifth crown looked out of the realms of possibility on October 28th last year. A 1-0 defeat at Sassuolo was Juve’s fourth in the opening 10 matches – as many defeats as in the entire 2014-15 season. They were 11 points from first place. It led to public criticism from Buffon and Patrice Evra: “The message for my teammates is clear: We must respect this shirt. In the first half against Sassuolo we didn’t.”
Three days later Juan Cuadrado scored a 93rd minute Turin Derby winner. The rest, as they say, is history. It was the first of 24 wins in 25 matches, the only blemish a draw at Bologna.
In the meantime, Buffon set the record for longest time without conceding a goal, 974 minutes. Juventus chased down their competitors, one by one. After passing Napoli in Round 25’s match of the season, they never looked back.
With this piece of history in their grasp, Juventus already have their sights set on number six.
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