The Captain's point

August 5, 2002
Juventus Official Site

Twenty days of work: here's the time necessary for the first steps towards the new Juventus. Twenty days: some important friendly matches (like the TIM Trophy in Trieste against Milan and Inter) and here are the first impressions of the protagonists. Yesterday it was the turn of Marcello Lippi and today it's the one of the captain, Alessandro del Piero.

"For the moment everything is going well. In this period the matches are useful to reach a good state of form. The results are not so important, even if we try to do our best to win. It may happen to play good matchs and other not so well played. Or, as it happened, to play in different ways during the same match."

Till now a positive thing is the fact that the new players arrived to Juventus have settled down well and quickly. All of them have been following carefully the advices given by Marcello Lippi and by their teammates and the settling has been quite natural. Here are the Captain's words: "The new arrivals have been really good and we have a good feeling with them. The society has worked very well for improving the quality of the group. Now we are covered in all the roles, even more than in the last season. If we consider all the important matches we'll play this year, everyone will be essential. More time for resting? Yes, probably: last season we had Salas and Amoruso injured and me and Trezeguet had to play more often than we thought. Now I think we'll have more time to recover energy."

Summer is a time mainly dedicated to tactical experiments. In this moment everyone is talking about the new scheme tried by Lippi in Trieste against Inter, with Trezeguet as the main forward, helped by Del Piero, Nedved and Camoranesi. The scheme was tried just for 45 minutes, too few, in Del Piero's opinion, to judge the tactical solution: "We know we can trust our usual scheme, the one we used last year, and this is the ideal moment to try different solutions. The desire to do well and to attack is related to the mentality of the team, not to the number of forwards used during the match. We are trying to use everyone's qualities to give our best. The next matches will be important to understand the situation and to gain more confidence and to receive the right sensations."
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