I Love Juventus

Juventus are one of the teams to remain in the Europa league after having been knocked out of the Champions League at the group stages itself.

Recently, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho criticised the policy of sending teams knocked out from the Champions League into the second-tier competition since it was eliminating the chance of victory for the teams that had qualified into the competition in the first place. Despite this, Juventus are keen on winning the trophy, which was won by Chelsea last season.

Juventus are closing to sealing a third successive league title after the club managed to open a 11 point advantage in the Italian Serie A following this weekend’s results. Despite this dominant position, the future of manager Antonio Conte has come under renewed speculation in the last few weeks.

He has only just over 12 months left on his current contract, and he has been coming under interest from numerous clubs across the world. He has done extremely well to guide Juventus the second division of Italian football to the top position once again.

Juventus managed to progress to the last 16 of the Europa league after a 4-0 win over Trabzonspor on aggregate. After being knocked out of the Champions league at the group stages, Juventus will be hoping to lift the Europa league this campaign.

They have certainly not expecting an exit so early in the Champions league after especially placing this as the main target for this campaign. Juventus have won the league title for the last two seasons in succession, but the club remain distant in comparison with the clubs eyeing for a European win.

The manager of Juventus, Antonio Conte, has said that his team is not concentrating on records at the moment.

When Juventus takes on Cagliari this weekend, they will have the chance to create new record of winning the most number of matches in a row in the Italian top flight.

According to Conte, his players have their focus on becoming the league champion and not on setting records.

Italian giants Juventus are reportedly aiming to have Bayern Munich's Mario Mandzukic. The Croatian player would be pushed out if Robert Lewandowski goes to Bayern Munich, and it is possible that the Italian champs could be a probable destination.

The arrival of former Barca coach Pep Guardiola and Bayern's new found style means that the twenty seven year old would struggle to get matches. A leading sports website stated that Juventus is all set to offer 20 million with a 4 year deal (around 3.5 million a season).

Fernando Llorente was a free transfer from Athletic Bilbao in the summer. He was expected to be part of the first-team almost instantly along with summer signing Carlos Tevez. The former Manchester City man was brought to the club for £ 10 million.

Last season, the attack used to be one of the major weaknesses for Juventus. They now have rectified this with the signings of Llorente and Tevez, but it has not been a great start for the former. Tevez has settled almost instantly and has been scoring a lot of goals since the start of the season.

Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini is regarded as one of the best in the world right now. He is rated in excess of € 25 million by his club, who are trying to fend off the interest from Real Madrid for his services.

After the arrival of Carlo Ancelotti as the manager of Real Madrid, speculation has been mounting that the 28-year-old defender will join the club. Ancelotti is a huge fan of the player after he tried to sign him with his previous clubs like Chelsea and PSG. However, he has so far been unable to lure the Italian away from Turin.

Juventus have made significant inroads when it comes to strengthening the squad in the striking department. The club has managed to bring in the likes of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente to strengthen the area where we lacked the most last season.

Juventus have had the best midfielders and defenders under Antonio Conte. It was only in the striking department that they lacked and this also has been strengthened following the arrival of these two players. The manager, though, reckons that there is still a lot of work to do within the team in order to make them great.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson recently announced his retirement from the sport after more than 40 years in charge of different clubs.

Even though he has managed a couple of Scottish clubs, Ferguson is known for being in charge of United for more than 25 years. There have been comparisons of Juventus manager Antonio Conte with the Scot, but the Italian has straightaway rejected the comparisons by saying that he is only starting in his career. After more than a decade without any success, Conte managed to lead Juventus to successive league titles.

The Italian champions Juventus have managed to complete the signing of the former Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka on a six-month deal from the Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua. The former French international moved to the Chinese league more than a year ago, but he has been unhappy recently.