The Great Alessandro

The Italian legend dates back to 1991 playing for Padova where this great journey all started, he then transferred to one of the best Italian teams in Italy, Juventus.

Il Pinturicchio spent 19yrs in the top flight of Serie A winning scudetto after scudetto, in total winning 30 Scudetti for the true Juventino fan. He also won two champions league titles with the Bianconeri, world Cup winner in 2006, Coppa Italia winner and just recently the Supercoppa against rivals Napoli.

 Alessandro to Juventus is the God of Italian football, he played along-side former legends Roberto Baggio and Gianluca Vialli, you could really tell he was going to become a world- wide Italian legend.

 Under the coaching guidance of some of the world’s best tacticians such as Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti, Alessandro excelled in every way for country and club.

 He had just finished winning a title for Juve when he would be looking for another club and that club would eventually be Sydney FC. During the last season of 2011-2012, the president of Juventus Andrea Agnelli made a very sad and direct statement about the great legend. He confirmed to the press and the world of football that Alessandro Del-Piero would not be offered a new contract to play on as Capitano or any playing role for Juventus. Del-Piero was not made aware of Agnelli’s decision as it created turmoil in the Juve camp not only on the field as he would get limited play time and would be later known as the Super sub. He was only playing an average of 10-15 mins per game, but as he does naturally score goals off the bench. Juventus then brought in Andrea Pirlo on a free-transfer from AC Milan which would really in any opinion make a great partnership with Alessandro in the starting eleven.

 Del-Piero’s last game was phenomenal, as he got substituted, the crowd stopped, the game stopped and the referees stopped to farewell the great Capitano. As he walked towards the Juve bench he waved the crowd goodbye and thanked all the fans with hand gesture of 19 yrs service with Juve. He was approaching the stands to sit along-side his team mates when a little girl approached him for a signature which he gladly provided her with.  This is how great this hero truly is.

 Alessandro struggled to find a club in the June transfer market of 2012. Many clubs were approaching him for his services such as Liverpool, Olympiacos, Celtic, Sion and Sydney FC. Now in my opinion, Juventus should of offered him a renewal of his contract as they had already qualified for Champions League football. It would have been great for him to finish his last year with Juventus competing for the European title. But that’s me.

 If we fast forward time now, Sydney FC has officially signed the great man on a marquee signing for 2 years at $2 million per season creating a superstar atmosphere at Sydney International Airport terminal, fans were chanting his name even well-before he had arrived at the terminal. There were about just under 1000 people to meet the Italian superstar with all his greatness he stopped to greet and sign avid fans of Sydney FC and Juventus respectively.

Alex has changed the Australian way of football as he truly will show the A-League how an Italian legend plays football.

Follow Peter Crepaz on twitter: @Crepaz10