Juve Rumor Fest

By: Martha | October 31st, 2007

smug drea I don’t know if an informer just escaped Luciano Moggi’s* secret mountaintop lair or what, but the papers today are just jam-packed with rumors about Juventus. Who’s going, who’s coming, who the gaffer rejected for unclear reasons — it’s all there in black and white, albeit sometimes in Tuttosport whose journalism, like that of The Sun, is rarely with the paper it’s printed on.

First of all, said Turin paper is reporting this morning that Crazy Zamparini recently offered the defense-poor Juve the services of one Andrea Barzagli (presumably for a not-so-small fee), but that Claudio Ranieri turned his nose up at the offer. Not surprisingly, there’s no indication in the article of the price Palermo may have been asking for the Azzurri defender, but if true the story is a bit mystifying, since nearly every team in Italy would love to have the services of Barzagli. The whole thing becomes even more comical (again, if there’s any truth to it at all) when paired with reports out of England today that have Juve target Ricardo Carvalho pledging to see out his contract with Chelsea, even without the comfort of a nearby Mourinho.

A bit further up the field, meanwhile, there are two stories in the Italian media today about Juve’s want-away midfielder, Tiago Mendes. In one of them, he’s the sweetener to a pending Bianconeri bid for Atletico Madrid’s teenage sensation, Sergio Aguero. According to, yes, Tuttosport, Alessio Secco is on the road again, this time on his way to Madrid, where he’ll make a formal offer for the striker. The rumored offered is said to consist of Tiago, plus the £15 million Atletico paid for Aguero during the summer of the 2006. Since then, though, his stock has risen dramatically, and Atletico are said to be unwilling to let the 19-year-old go for any less than the £24 million buyout clause in his contract. Alternately and far less dramatically, Tiago could join Fiorentina on loan during the winter transfer window. Because his pay is well over the Viola salary cap, though, the only way in which the deal could be done is if Juve pay about 40% of his salary, leaving Fiorentina to cover €1.5 million, an amount they’re willing (and can afford) to pay their top players.

Got all that? Good. And I hereby pledge that fewer than 75% of the posts I write for the second half of this week will involved Juve.

*Yes, I know he’s no longer Officially Involved with the club. But, really.