’15-’16 CHAMPS’ LEAGUE PRIMER #5: Juventus

“Ch Ch Ch why you walka so fast baybee?”

Ahhh Italy. The land where they talk with their hands, kick with their feet, and the men love soccer almost as much as they love blonde American girls studying abroad. Juventus was the Champions’ League runner-up last year and ran away with the Serie A title. Serie A has a 5 minute longer halftime than all the other leagues, so that the Italian players can call their mothers.
Juve lost their (and Serie A’s) top scorer Carlos Neckless Tevez to Boca Juniors in Argentina, but another Argentinian, 22 year old Paulo Dybala, has stepped up to fill that void nicely, with 10 goals and 6 assists in Juve’s 14 match winning streak.

More like DABala:  Paulo Dybala is seemingly sneezing goals this season.

Juve has a talent-loaded squad, with young Spaniard Alvaro Morata joining Dybala up top, and Colombian Juan Cuadrado has lately begun to contribute more regularly from out wide. 3-time Serie A defender of the year Giorgio Chiellini commands a solid defensive back 3 that has kept 63 year old goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon fairly untroubled, with only 1 goal conceded in their last 7 league matches. Midfielder Sami Khedira has battled injuries this season, but Juve is unbeaten this season when the drastically underrated German stud has been on the field.

Yet, with all these quality players, there is only name you need to remember: Paul Pogba. Pogba is Juve’s do-it-all midfielder, and he is so young and so good that he is almost guaranteed to become the most expensive transfer of all time. There’s a reason the 22 year old Frenchman described as a “box-to-box player”, and it’s not because he bounces romantically from supermodel to supermodel; it’s because his heat maps look like this:

Box……………………to…………………….Box

Which means he does things like this:

And 10 seconds later he does things like this:

Their fixture with Bayern Munich is one of two intriguing matchups that is probably better suited for the semifinals (the other being Barcelona vs. Arsenal), and while Bayern is a tough draw, it promises to be highly entertaining.

Degrees of Mourinho:: Jose managed Inter Milan to a treble in 2010, winning the Scudetto (league title), Coppa Italia, and Champions’ League final.

While Mourinho was at Inter, Juventus was managed by Claudio Ranieri, nicknamed The Village Vespa since 9 different clubs in Italy took a ride with him at the helm. Chelsea dumped Ranieri for Mourinho in 2004, and after Mourinho left Inter, the heartbroken Milan club found solace in the arms of Ranieri and asked if maybe he could try a Portuguese accent when he said “I love you.”?

Meanwhile, current Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri, who called Mourinho “pathetic,” “arrogant,” and “insecure,” while he was managing Cagliari, has been widely tipped as the strapping gentleman to make Chelsea forget all about that deadbeat Jose, who never took responsibility and left his dishes piled in the sink.

Whew, so much drama. This is why Wife Swap: Serie A Manager Edition just displaced Flavor of Love as the most watched reality show in Italy.

Claudio Ranieri poses with the clubs of Serie A.

Why YOU Should Root for Juventus: You drive a Jeep. You like spaghetti. Juve is rolling along as well as any team in the tournament, and the black and white striped unis are classics.

Why You Shouldn’t: They are nicknamed “The Old Lady,” and old ladies give you butterscotch candies (gross) and scare you by popping out their dentures unexpectedly. No thanks, not falling for that one again.

How Far will they Go? Juve is Good, but Bayern is Too Good. The Italians are knocked out in the Round of 16.

Best Friends: Defenders Patrice Evra and Giorgio Chiellini each have added motivation to do well in the Champion’s League. Barcelona is likely to reach the Final, and Evra and Chiellini would each love to match up (for the second year running) with their good friend, Luis Suarez. The relationships between Evra&Chiellini and Suarez are best described as love/hate.

In 2011, Evra complained to the FA that Suarez had racially abused him during a Liverpool- Man U match by calling him “Negrito,” but Suarez contends that he used it as a term of affection, like “mate” or “pal.” Then again, even terms of endearment can irritate people.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter weighed in the topic saying, “I would deny [that there is any racism in soccer]…at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard to provide apartments for our cats against racism and discrimination.” Classic leadership from Blatter, showing he didn’t get elected to 5 consecutive terms as the President of FIFA for nothing. (He got elected for much more than nothing, 100s of millions of dollars in kickbacks. Allegedly.)

Suarez and Chiellini bonded over fine dining, but their friendship is also marred by misunderstandings. In the Italy vs. Uruguay match at the 2014 World Cup, while discussing how tender a perfectly cooked steak should be, Chiellini over-zealously rammed his shoulder into poor Luis’s teeth, hurting him really badly. Poor journalism caused Suarez to be vilified in the media, but his only crime was having large teeth and being a mouth breather.

Victim Luis Suarez holds his injured teeth after being assaulted by Giorgio’s shoulder.

’15-’16 CHAMPS’ LEAGUE PRIMER #2: AS Roma

The AS Roma shield, as in, “Shield the children’s eyes, that she-wolf has her boobies out!”

Roma found their way through the group stage with 1 win from 6 games, while giving up 16 goals and scoring 11. The only team to give up more goals than Roma in the group stage was Malmo FF, the Swedish champions who showed up for their first match with ice skates on.
Roma’s last game of the group stage was a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Barcelona, but you should have seen the one goal for Roma:

Mamma Mia indeed, it should have been worth 2. Roma has struggled lately in Serie A too, with 2 wins in their last 10 league matches. Miralem Pjanic has been excellent, but Edin Dzeko has not scored the goals Roma had hoped for after signing him from Manchester City, with only 3 so far. Recent loan signing Stephan El Sharaawy should inject some life into an offense that just lost their second leading scorer, Gervinho, to Hebei China Fortune FC.

Now that the Redskins’ playoff run is over, RG3 will resume his soccer season as Gervinho, the Ivorian midfielder.

Off the field, the club is almost as shambolic as the team on it. They played the Derby Della Capitale against local rival Lazio to a half empty stadium because of boycotts from the Ultras, diehard fans who get pissy and violent when they lose. Think Raiders fans but with Italian accents. The boycott was in protest to new policies limiting what can be brought in the stadium. Club president James Palotta tried to reason with the fans, “The police have asked for stairs and gates to be free, no flares and no bombs. The police are fine with chants and flags.” Chants and flags?? What is this, kindergarten?? We want to throw our bombs!

Additionally, Roma is 1 of 2 teams in the Champions’ League who fired their manager (Rudi Garcia) after qualifying for the final 16.

Pjanic drops a dime, and his teammate mucks it up.

Degrees of Mourinho: The other manager sacked after qualification: Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho. Reportedly, after sacking Garcia, Roma offered the job to Mourinho who rejected it by saying “(fart noise).” Would have been interesting though. Jose could have jumped directly back into Champions’ League competition against a another of his former clubs, Real Madrid.

Why YOU Should Root for Roma: Sports in Ancient Rome consisted of slaves fighting gory battles to the death with other slaves, wild animals, or Russell Crowe for the entertainment of corrupt officials. Today, non-violence is the key. Roma’s players are Paid to play soft, toothless soccer in front of corrupt officials. +2 for freedom and peace! (And -1 for corruption, but a net gain of +1)

Why You Shouldn’t: They are sort of awful. Their logo features some pretty graphic wolf nudity.

How Far will they Go? This could get ugly.  Roma would struggle to beat eggs for a frittata right now, with 1 win in their last 11 games and drawing Real Madrid won’t help their case. It will be a long chariot ride home from Spain after Real knocks them out.

Cristiano Ronaldo shows no mercy to wounded Roma

Old Big Head’s drunken ramble:: One time, OBH was in Rome, and he went on a pub crawl, and he had so much limoncello and Peroni and some other Italian alcohol. He wandered the city debauching, and he bumped into a Russian woman alone in a cemetery, and he casually asked her, “What’s up?” and she casually responded, “I am a Russian reporter in town to cover the FINA Swimming World Championships. You know Michael Phelps? He is there.”
So the next morning, Old Big Headache rode a bus packed full of sweaty Romans to the Foro Italico to watch some aquatic excellence. While leaving the stadium, a crowd of people started pushing and shouting, and some buff Italian dudes swept OBH aside like some burnt garlic bread. Behind these mobsters was a little guy who was apparently important cause everybody was yelling “Un Capitano!” OBH casually asked an old Italian woman who that was, and she not so casually responded with a tear in her eye, “You don’t know Totti? The one captain! THE ONE CAPTAIN!!”

Francisco Totti is the captain of Roma and a legend who has been with the club since 1992. Aren’t you glad you read all that to see the story’s connection to soccer?