The history of Juventus F.C. covers over 120 years of association football from the club based in Turin, Italy, and established in 1897 that would eventually become the most successful team in the history of Italian football and amongst the elite football clubs of the world. Iuventūs is Latin for "youth". According to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, an international organization recognized by FIFA, Juventus were Italy's best club of the 20th century and the second most successful European club in the same period.
Early years (1897–1918)
In the late 19th century, football began to take hold throughout Europe. In 1896, some students of the third and fourth class of the Liceo Classico Massimo d'Azeglio in Turin would gather after class around a bench not far from their school, opposite the Platti confectionery, towards what is now Corso Re Umberto, on the corner of Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. They would discuss sport, especially football, and started to play it, so much so that the following year they founded a civil society "for fun, for enjoyment, for desire of novelty". The society's founding date is unknown; conventionally, the date of 1 November 1897 is used. Its first meeting took place was held in the backroom of the Canfari brothers' bicycle workshop, at 42, Corso Re Umberto. During the meeting, there was a vote to decide the name of the society where Sport-Club Juventus was chosen. Enrico Canfari described the vote as follows:
Juventus' first headquarters was located in Via Montevecchio in 1898. However, the increase of members forced it to change its headquarters to 4, Via Piazzi. The following year, Juventus changed name to Foot-Ball Club Juventus. Canfari described the reason for that:
On 11 June 1899, Juventus' first documented friendly match took place, against the representative of the Germano Sommelier Technical Institute.
Juventus was founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo d'Azeglio Lyceum school in Turin, among them Eugenio Canfari and Enrico Canfari. It was renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later. The club joined the 1900 Italian Football Championship. Juventus played their first Italian Football Championship match on 11 March 1900 in a 1–0 defeat against Torinese. During this period, the team wore a pink and black kit, but since 1901–02 season the club colours have changed to black and white stripes, inspired by English side Notts County.
In 1904, businessman Marco Ajmone-Marsan revived the finances of Juventus, making it possible to transfer the training field from piazza d'armi to the more appropriate Velodrome Umberto I. Juventus first won the 1905 Italian Football Championship while playing at their Velodrome Umberto I ground.
There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin. Alfred Dick, the club's president, was unhappy with this, and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino, which in turn spawned the Derby della Mole. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, surviving the First World War.
League dominance (1923–1980)
FIAT vicepresident Edoardo Agnelli was elected club's president in 1923 and a new stadium was inaugurated one year before. This helped the club to its second league championship in the 1925–26 Prima Divisione, after beating Alba Roma in a two-legged final with an aggregate score of 12–1. The club established itself as a major force in Italian football since the 1930s, becoming the country's first professional club and the first with a decentralised fan base, which led it to win a record of five consecutive Italian football championships and form the core of the Italy national football team during the Vittorio Pozzo's era, including the 1934 FIFA World Cup champions, with star players like Raimundo Orsi, Luigi Bertolini, Giovanni Ferrari, and Luis Monti, among others. As of 2022, it is the club with the most FIFA World Cup champions at 27.
Juventus moved to the Stadio Comunale, but for the rest of the 1930s and the majority of the 1940s they were unable to recapture championship dominance. After the Second World War, Gianni Agnelli was appointed president. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the club added two more league championships to its name, winning the 1949–50 Serie A under the management of Englishman Jesse Carver, and then repeating in the 1951–52 Serie A. For the 1957–58 Serie A, two new strikers, Welshman John Charles and Italian Argentine Omar Sívori, were signed to play alongside longtime member Giampiero Boniperti. In the 1959–60 Juventus F.C. season, they beat Fiorentina to complete their first league and cup double, winning the 1959–60 Serie A and the 1960 Coppa Italia final. Boniperti retired in 1961 as the all-time top scorer at the club, with 182 goals in all competitions, a club record that stood for 45 years.
During the rest of the decade, the club only won the 1966–67 Serie A. The 1970s saw Juventus further solidify their strong position in Italian football, and under former player Čestmír Vycpálek they won the scudetto in the 1971–72 Serie A, and followed through in the 1972–73 Serie A, with players like as Roberto Bettega, Franco Causio, and José Altafini breaking through. During the rest of the decade, they won the league thrice more, with defender Gaetano Scirea contributing significantly. The latter two success in Serie A was under Giovanni Trapattoni, who also led the club to their first ever major European title, the 1976–77 UEFA Cup, and helped the club's domination continue on into the early part of the 1980s.
European stage (1980–1993)
The Trapattoni era was highly successful in the 1980s and the club started the decade off well, winning the league title three more times by 1984. This meant Juventus had won 20 Italian league titles and were allowed to add a second golden star to their shirt, becoming the only Italian club to achieve this. Around this time, the club's players were attracting considerable attention, and Paolo Rossi was named European Footballer of the Year following his contribution to Italy's victory in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, where he was named Player of the Tournament.
Frenchman Michel Platini was awarded the European Footballer of the Year title for a record three consecutive years (1983, 1984 and 1985). Juventus are the first and one of the only two clubs to have players from their club winning the award in four consecutive years. It was Platini who scored the winning goal in the 1985 European Cup final against Liverpool; this was marred by the Heysel Stadium disaster, which changed European football. That year, Juventus became the first club in the history of European football to have won all three major UEFA competitions; after their triumph in the 1985 Intercontinental Cup, the club also became the first and thus far the only in association football history to have won all five possible confederation competitions, an achievement that it revalidated with a sixth title won in the 1999 UEFA Intertoto Cup.
With the exception of winning the closely contested 1985–86 Serie A, the rest of the 1980s were not very successful for the club. As well as having to contend with Diego Maradona's Napoli, both of the Milanese clubs, A.C. Milan and Inter Milan, won Italian championships; Juventus achieved a double by winning the 1989–90 Coppa Italia and the 1990 UEFA Cup final under the guidance of former club legend Dino Zoff. In 1990, Juventus also moved into their new home, the Stadio delle Alpi, which was built for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Despite the arrival of Italian star Roberto Baggio later that year for a world football transfer record fee, the early 1990s under Luigi Maifredi and subsequently Trapattoni once again also saw little success for Juventus, as they only managed to win the 1993 UEFA Cup final.
Renewed international success (1994–2004)
Marcello Lippi took over as Juventus manager at the start of the 1994–95 Serie A. His first season at the helm of the club was a successful one, as Juventus recorded their first Serie A championship title since the mid-1980s, as well as the 1995 Coppa Italia final. The crop of players during this period featured Ciro Ferrara, Roberto Baggio, Gianluca Vialli, and a young Alessandro Del Piero. Lippi led Juventus to the 1995 Supercoppa Italiana and the 1995–96 UEFA Champions League, beating Ajax on penalties after a 1–1 draw in which Fabrizio Ravanelli scored for Juventus.
The club did not rest long after winning the European Cup, as more highly regarded players were brought into the fold in the form of Zinedine Zidane, Filippo Inzaghi, and Edgar Davids. At home, Juventus won the 1996–97 Serie A, successfully defended their title in the 1997–98 Serie A, won the 1996 UEFA Super Cup, and followed through with the 1996 Intercontinental Cup. Juventus reached two consecutive Champions League finals during this period but lost out to Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid, respectively in 1997 and 1998.
After a two-and-a-half-season absence, Lippi returned to the club in 2001, following his replacement Carlo Ancelotti's dismissal, signing big name players like Gianluigi Buffon, David Trezeguet, Pavel Nedvěd, and Lilian Thuram, helping the team to win the 2001–02 Serie A, which was their first since 1998, and confirmed themselves in the 2002–03 Serie A. Juventus were also part of the all Italian 2003 UEFA Champions League final but lost out to Milan on penalties after the game ended in a 0–0 draw. At the conclusion of the following season, Lippi was appointed as the Italy national team's head coach, bringing an end to one of the most fruitful managerial spells in Juventus' history.
Calciopoli scandal (2004–2007) Fabio Capello was appointed as Juventus' coach in 2004 and led the club to two more consecutive Serie A first places. In May 2006, Juventus emerged as one of the five clubs linked to the Calciopoli scandal. In July, Juventus was placed at the bottom of the league table and relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history. The club was also stripped of the 2004–05 Serie A title, while the 2005–06 Serie A winner, after a period sub judice, was declared to be third-placed Inter Milan. This remains a much debated and controversial issue, particularly due to Inter Milan's possible revealed involvement, the 2004 championship (the sole being investigated) deemed regular and not fixed, Juventus being absolved as club in the ordinary justice proceedings, their renounce to the Italian civil courts appeal, which could have cleared the club's name and avoid relegation, after FIFA threatened to suspend the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and barring all Italian clubs from international play, and the motivations, such as sentimento popolare (people's feelings), and the newly created ad-hoc rule used to relegate the club.
Many key players left following their relegation to Serie B, including Thuram, star striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, midfielders Emerson and Patrick Vieira, and defensive stalwarts Fabio Cannavaro and Gianluca Zambrotta; other big name players, such as Del Piero, Buffon, Trezeguet, and Nedvěd, as well as the club's future defense core Giorgio Chiellini, remained to help the club return to Serie A, while youngsters from the Campionato Nazionale Primavera (youth team), such as Sebastian Giovinco and Claudio Marchisio, were integrated into the first team.- Juventus won the Cadetti title (Serie B championship) despite starting with a points deduction and gained promotion straight back up to the top division, with Del Piero claiming the top scorer award with 21 goals, as league winners after the 2006–07 Serie B season.