After a horrendous start in 2021-22 Serie A campaign, Massimiliano Allegri can now heave a sigh of relief, albeit temporarily. Three back-to-back wins in Champions League have put them on top of group H; the Turin giants’ Indian fans would further be pleased by Alessandro Del Piero’s utterances. “Juventus are in clear recovery in all aspects. Juventus have the talent upfront to score goals. If I score sooner or later, but don’t concede, it’s much easier to win games,” the former World Cup winner said after Juventus’s 1-0 win over Zenit Saint Petersburg.      

To the young Indian fans, Juventus meant an exciting outfit after Christiano Ronaldo bid good bye to Real Madrid to try his luck in Italy. For the veteran followers of Old Lady, the club were synonymous with Del Piero for his 19-season exploits that often set the stands in Stadio delle Alpi on fire. In 2014, the gifted free-kick specialist spent a season in Delhi Dynamos in Indian super League (ISL) – hundreds thronged Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi to have a glimpse of one the finest footballers of his time. Calm and composed, he looked hardly perturbed when the team management asked Del Piero to have a chat with the journalists at the parking lot of the training ground.  

Allegri was having a tough time as the manager – perhaps more than what he faced many years ago when he served a ban for match-fixing. His job looked in line at the start of the season when Juventus struggled in Serie A initially. But nine points in three matches in Champions League has certainly come as a boon. They looked in a roaring form after the 1-0 win over Zenit Saint Petersburg. They had beaten Chelsea and AS Roma with similar scoreline – Juventus’s inability to find the target beyond bare minimum is definitely still a suspect area, but at least they have found some consistency. The coach has rightly said that a lead of thin margin in a match can stand cancelled at any point of time, but then, three points are more important that anything else in a game of football.