Juventus

Juventus, in full Juventus Football Club, also called Juventus FC, bynames la Vecchia Signora (Italian: “the Old Lady”) and Juve, Italian professional football (soccer) team based in Turin. Juventus is one of Italy’s oldest and most successful clubs, with more Italian league championships than any other team.

Juventus was founded in 1897 by a group of grammar school students. The team, which did not play an official league match until 1900, started out wearing pink shirts. Its current uniforms, featuring shirts with black and white vertical stripes, were adopted in 1903. Two years later the club won its first Italian league championship. The Agnelli family, owners of the Fiat automotive company, gained control of the club in 1923, and in 1925–26 Juventus won its second Italian league title. The 1930s were a golden period for “Juve,” as it won five Italian league championships in that decade and provided nine members of the Italian national squad that won the 1934 World Cup.

The financial support of the Agnelli family has enabled Juventus, on occasion, to sign some of the world’s best footballers. Indeed, the club has broken the world record for the highest football transfer fee a number of times and over the years has obtained the talents of football luminaries such as Omar Sívori, Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, and Gianluigi Buffon.

Juventus beat Liverpool FC to win the 1985 European Cup at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, but the victory was overshadowed by tragedy when surging Liverpool supporters—who were charging Juventus fans—collapsed a wall, killing 39 fans. Eleven years later Juve returned to the Champions League (as the European Cup is now known) final, beating Ajax of the Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out to win its second continental championship. Juventus has also won three Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Cups (1977, 1990, 1993), two UEFA Super Cups (1984, 1996), and a European Cup Winners’ Cup (1984). Domestically, the club has won a bevy of Italian Cups and Italian Super Cups.

Juventus has triumphed in the Italian league, known since 1929 as Serie A, a record 35 times. In 2006 that total was reduced, as the club’s Serie A titles from 2004–05 and 2005–06 were removed as a result of club officials’ roles in a match-fixing scandal that involved a number of Italian clubs. Juventus was relegated to Serie B (the first relegation in club history) for the 2006–07 season as an additional punishment, but it earned promotion back to Serie A the following season.