The List Of Candidates To Replace Juventus Coach Luigi Del Neri

It may well happen sooner, but it won’t happen any later. Saturday’s home defeat to Bologna was proof if ever it were needed that this season’s Old Lady is as decrepit as last term’s. With seven points to make up on fourth-placed Lazio, the failure to reach next year’s Champions League is looking increasingly like a foregone conclusion. Only a miracle of Castel di Sangro proportions would see them qualify now.

Del Neri will rightly pay for the inability to lead them to Europe’s top table by finding himself jobless. With his side having practically mirrored last season’s debacle under first Ciro Ferrara and then Alberto Zaccheroni, the supposed revolution which was to be led by sporting director Giuseppe Marotta has borne no fruit in terms of sporting success.

On the pitch they have at times been a shambles, with Del Neri playing his best player, Giorgio Chiellini, out of position to cover the fact that the club cannot boast two decent full-backs from a pool of seven in their squad.

Elsewhere, many of the club’s summer signings have fallen short of the mark: Leonardo Bonucci has been hit more than miss, but not by much, Fabio Quagliarella excelled but has been too badly missed since picking up a serious knee injury, and Alberto Aquilani has complemented Felipe Melo well in midfield but the club consider Liverpool’s €16 million asking price too steep to keep him on.

Men such as Simone Pepe, Marco Motta and Jorge Martinez have not lived up to the billing when called upon, and winter purchases Andrea Barzagli and Luca Toni have hardly started much better, with the jury still out on Alessandro Matri.

Amidst all the below-par performances, Del Neri has appeared clueless in the quest for answers. Though victories have been attained over Milan and Inter, the ex-Sampdoria gaffer has failed to muster the enthusiasm within his squad to overcome the likes of Palermo, Bologna, Chievo and – unforgettably – Parma.

If the inevitable does happen and Juve finish fifth or lower, by the summer of 2012 one of the grandest names in world football will have competed in only one Champions League knockout tie in six years. That kind of statistic will just not do, and the list of candidates being drawn up by the peninsula’s press is in keeping with the traditions of the club.
A mix of ex-Bianconeri legends and current coaching behemoths makes for exactly the type of shortlist one used to associate with the club, and it is important that the Old Lady goes down a familiar road in the search for a renaissance.

No more Del Neris. No more Zaccheronis. Now is the time for the management to choose wisely, or face yet more years in the doldrums.