Juve Love You Long Time

By: Martha | June 28th, 2007

Pepe! Man, it’s just all seduction, all the time up in Turin these days: Juve get promoted, and the next thing you know they’re the bookies’ third-favorite to win the title and are courting players like there’s no tomorrow.

At the moment, they’re working to complete their total defensive overhaul, which seems to mean contacting pretty much every Portuguese-speaking central defender (not named Couto) walking the face of the earth. First, it was Benfica’s Brazil international Luisão they were trying scoring, possibly as part of a package combining Juve property Fabrizio Miccoli — who has become a big favorite at the Lisbon side in the last two years — with about €8 million.

Now, though, the Luisão fascination seems to have faded away, only to be replaced by both Stuttgart’s Portuguese international Fernando Meira and Pepe, a young central defender who currently plays for Porto. There’s no word on how much Juve are willing to spend on Meira, but it appears they’ll have a fight on their hands for his service: He’s contracted to the German champions through 2010, and team personnel have said he’s not available. Regarding Pepe, meanwhile, there’s going to be some serious competition: Man U and Barcelona, among others, are said to be interested in the player, who is only 23 and seems to have clubs all across European convulsing with lust. Juve have reportedly already visited Pepe — who is currently under contract with Porto — and are preparing an substantial offer of about £13 million. Or, alternately, they’ll see if they can get Porto to take Miccoli (who has been telling the Portuguese press it’s either Juve or Benfica for him, full-stop) off their hands and reduce the fee that way.

No matter how much it costs, though, club president Giovanni Cobolli Gigli has everybody’s back: They need a defender and, dammit he’s willing to spend. And, just as importantly, Nedved will stay for another year, they’re working on Camo, and “White men? The attack is competitive.” (My god, Google translate is in rare form today. There’s more coming, never fear.)