Decade of Domination 3 : Juventus
Taking a Look at that Nine-Year Spell of Invincibility — 2013/14
Nine years of success that had all other Serie A clubs as livid as Germano Mosconi after the third take.
How did Juventus orchestrate their historic winning streak?
We dive in chronologically and investigate key signings and coaching changes, best and biggest wins, key contributors and delicious facts (factolicious).
This is Part 3. Click here to read from the beginning
Warning : This content may harm Inter, Milan, Roma and Napoli fans.
2013/14 : Three In A Row for Conte
Just when you thought the success of the previous two years couldn’t be sustained, Juventus was transcendent.
By now Napoli and Roma were the main contenders with Milan and Inter both stumbling around, drunk on the success of yesteryear and still suffering a heavy, winless hangover.
Goals from Paul Pogba, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Giorgio Chiellini and new signing Carlos Tevez provided an incredible start to the season, as Juventus crushed Lazio 0–4 at the Olimpico in the 2013 Italian Super Cup Final.
The mutton dressed up as lamb days under Luigi Delneri seemed a distant memory. Antonio Conte was serving up a never ending buffet of tasty results, winning his 100th game as Juve coach in just 149 attempts.
The Transfers Out : Alessandro Matri (Milan), Paolo De Ceglie (Genoa), Emmanuele Giaccherini (Sunderland), Luca Marrone (Sassuolo), Richmond Boakye (Elche), Marco Motta (Genoa)
The Transfers In : Carlos Tevez (Manchester City), Fernando Llorente (Athletic Bilboa), Angelo Ogbonna (Torino), Dani Osvaldo (Southampton)
Alessandro Matri was sold to Milan in the summer window after contributing 29 goals during his impressive two and a half season stint. This turned out to be a lovely piece of business by Beppe Marotta as the former Cagliari striker scored just once for the Rossoneri and would consequently be sent on a string of loan spells around the nation.
Meanwhile Carlos Tevez (19) and Fernando Llorente (16) would combine to contribute 35 Serie A goals between them, two shiny new signings that would prove to be ruthless in front of goal as Mirko Vucinic missed 23 games through injury and Fabio Quagliarella started just three times.
Paul Pogba made 36 appearances in Serie A, the most of any squad member, and contributed 7 goals in total. The 20 year old Frenchman, who’d signed on a free transfer from Manchester United the year before, netted 3 decisive goals against Parma and Bologna as well as the winner in the Derby della Mole.
Juventus won on 33 occasions in the league and 20 games in a row in front of their own supporters. Both remain Serie A records.
The Bianconeri surpassed the highest ever Serie A points total, previously established by Inter in 2006–07 and were the first team ever to break the 100-point barrier in the history of the Italian game, concluding with 102.
Juventus had won 15 games by just the one goal, eleven of those ending as 1–0 victories. But a win’s a win and Conte’s men accumulated a record number of points fuelled by three lengthy undefeated streaks.
Key Contributors : Buffon (19) and Storari (3) combined for 22 Serie A clean sheets.
Best Serie A Winning Streak : 12 matches and a 22 match undefeated streak.
There were just two losses for Juve throughout this Serie A season, most notably the famous 4–2 comeback by Fiorentina at the Artemio Franchi, and a 2–0 defeat at Napoli which would be the only time throughout the campaign that the Bianconeri were held goalless.
Roma challenged well initially, winning their ten opening games of the season to leave Napoli and Juventus five points behind at the beginning of November.
But by December, Juventus surged into first place, three points clear of the Giallorossi who had just dropped points against Cagliari, Sassuolo and Atalanta.
By early January, the title race was as good as over, Roma was thoroughly thrashed by Juventus 3–0.
Inter may have won the 2009/10 Tripletta by winning the Scudetto, Coppa Italia and Champions League, but by May 2014 Juventus was able to declare total domination once again on the peninsula.
Biggest Serie A Wins : Juventus 4 v Catania 0, Juventus 4 v Sassuolo 0
Best win : Juventus 3 Roma 0. Goals by Vidal, Bonucci and Vucinic helped the team celebrate the new year with a dominant victory, and increasing the lead to 8 points over Roma.
Conte himself said, “What we’ve done over the last three years isn’t easily improved upon.” But this also left room for criticism, as Juventus put in a mediocre showing in the Cup tournaments.
UEFA Champions League
After a dismal Champions League performance, finishing 3rd behind Real Madrid and Galatasaray, Juventus tumbled into the Europa League knock out stages.
Conte’s 3–5–2 system failed in Champions League. Juventus’ defensive trio conceded in every game, for an average of 1.5 goals compared with that of 0.6 in Serie A (23 goals in 38 games).
Europa League Knock Outs
With the Europa League final designated to be contested at the Juventus Stadium, it seemed serendipitous that the Bianconeri would steamroll through the knock-outs and lift their fourth Europa League trophy in front of adoring fans.
But even that dream would turn into delusion, as Benfica foiled Conte’s plans with a solid nil all semi-final draw in Turin after taking a 2–1 lead in Lisbon in late April. Juventus had fallen at the penultimate hurdle.
European glory was circumvented yet again. Juventus’ last Europa League title was won by Giovanni Trapattoni in 1992/93, a 6–1 aggregate win over Borussia Dortmund thanks to 3 goals from Dino Baggio, a brace for Roberto Baggio and the sixth, a fortuitous ricochet off the boot of ex-BVB attacking midfielder Andreas Möller.
Coppa Italia
Rudi Garcia’s Roma would get revenge in the quarter final of the Coppa Italia, as Gervinho’s goal denied Juve’s hopes of a first domestic cup title since 1995.
Factolicious : Buffon, Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini, Pirlo and Marchisio were all called up to Cesare Prandelli’s 2014 Italian World Cup squad, a total of 6 Juventus players.
Leading Juve Goal Scorers for 2013/14 : 21 Carlos Tevez, 18 Arturo Vidal, 18 Fernando Llorente, 9 Paul Pogba, 6 Andrea Pirlo
Conclusion
The Old Lady danced up a storm on the domestic stage, but in terms of European success there wasn’t anything else that Antonio Conte felt he could do for her. He’d just won the club’s 30th league title, Conte’s third in as many attempts and it was now time to move on.
Conte ended his first season as Juventus coach unconquered, a feat that has only ever been accomplished by two other teams: Perugia in 1978–79 and Milan in 1991–92.
He then carried that run into the following campaign, Inter finally ending the 49 game undefeated streak, becoming the first team to win at the Juventus Stadium, now known as Allianz Stadium since 2017.
Conte then bettered the previous season’s points tally by 15 (87 points in 2012/13) and departed Turin with 5 Scudetti as a player and 3 as a coach.
The former Siena boss also won the Panchina d’Oro, the award given to the best Serie A coach of the season, in each season of his three-year stint in Turin.
Cesare Prandelli resigned as Italy coach after a dismal 2014 FIFA World Cup. Conte took the job, signing on as Azzurri coach until 2016.
This left a black hole on the Juve bench. Find out who fills it in Part 4.
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