Alessandro Del Piero: Legends deserve better

‘Let me tell you, legends are all very well if you’ve got somebody around who loves you.’

I had long heard people waxing lyrical about the greatness of Alessandro Del Piero, but hadn’t had the chance to see him play till in 2002. The first time I saw Del Piero was in a World Cup book my cousin gifted me, there was a complete 3 page interview where he had spoken about football, life, fans etc. – He was already one of my favourites and the admiration only grew as I started watching him play – for Juventus, mainly.

For me, and many many more, Juventus = Alessandro Del Piero. Yes, there was Pavel Nedved and even Zinedine Zidane among others, but neither was as much a talisman for Juventus as Il Pinturicchio was. It was one of the reasons I admired Italian football that much, the way the legends were treated – Francesco Totti, Paolo Maldini, etc. The fans never forgot them, the club never forgot them.

Hence, the way Juventus president Andrea Agnelli announced recently that this season will be Del Piero’s last with the Old Lady came as a huge shock. This is not some player who has spent a season or two at Turin for the matter to be done away with – This was Alessandro Del Piero. The guy who stayed on to help Juventus haul themselves back into top flight football after they were relegated to Serie B thanks to the Calciopoli scandal. The guy who has scored close to 300 goals and has represented Juve in close to 700 games. The guy the tifosi have been calling their own for over 18 years now. Their all time top goal-scorer.

The decision to not retain the striker may be a logical one, for Juventus have a host of younger strikers to count on but the manner in which the announcement was made was surely not worthy of a top tier club. Agnelli made the announcement at a shareholders’ meeting saying,

“The unique link between the old Juventus and the new Juve is our captain, Alessandro Del Piero. The link between the Stadio Comunale, Stadio delle Alpi to Stadio Olimpico to the Juventus Stadium is our captain Del Piero. He wanted to stay with us for one more year, (but) this will be his last season wearing the black and white jersey.”

That’s it. Everything was over… as abruptly as the announcement.

Juventus’ all time leading scorer’s abilities may be on the wane, and keeping him on for another year maybe a liability for the title contenders. But a press conference with the player himself and the club president announcing the decision would seem right in many fans’ eyes. Instead of a collective gasp when the actual statement was made you would have had fans writing tributes and recollecting the glory days.

The only justification that I can think of is if the 36 year old had had a falling out with Agnelli or if he personally requested the President to make such a statement. But there have been no indications of either which begs the question: What did Del Piero do to deserve such treatment? Raul had such a memorable sending off, so did Maldini and Billy Costacurta and a host of others. Why Del Piero did not, we may never know. Maybe there is something in the pipeline and Juventus will do something about one of their best ever players leaving the club and ensures he has happy memories about it.

Well, maybe we will see goals from ‘The Del Piero zone’ at other clubs next year, but not seeing Il Pinturicchio in Black & White will take a little getting used to.

‘When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness.‘