Dear Santa: A Christmas wishlist from Juventus

Date: 24th December 2014 at 4:54pm
Written by:

Dear Santa,

Massimiliano Allegri here, current coach of reigning Italian champions Juventus and long time admirer of your work.

Some may say that my team and I have had enough good fortune over recent years, however, given our luck during the Supercoppa Italiana shootout defeat there are clearly still things that could benefit from your own piece of festive magic should you be so obliging.

While another Scudetto would be a nice personal achievement the Bianconeri fans want a little more after three successive titles and I’m afraid they’re setting their sights higher than the Coppa Italia so some help as we return to Champions League action would be a great help — be it in the form of a lucky horseshoe or rabbit’s foot, we’re not fussy.

Obviously I’m not going to bemoan the fact that we have drawn an out-of-sorts Borussia Dortmund in the Round of 16 but if you can keep the dice continuing to roll in our favour for the rest of the competition they’ll be a medal waiting for you in Berlin on June 6.

For a successful tilt at European glory we’ll still need to have all hands to the pump so some assistance with the injuries that have seen us lose key defenders such as Patrice Evra, Kwadwo Asamoah and Martin Caceres for significant periods this term would be nice.

While getting Andrea Barzagli out of the treatment room would be a victory in itself, some magical ointment to keep the rest of the squad free from injury would be equally useful. Failing that, I’ll take the much-in-demand Andrej Kramaric to plug the gap.

However, our troubles highlight the fact that some important members of my team are closer to my age than I would like and some adult sized bubble wrap to surround Gianliugi Buffon and Andrea Pirlo in would be handy.

Rather than anything under the tree come Christmas morning I would like you to arrange for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to visit the bedroom of Paul Pogba on the 24th and present a picture of career suicide should he follow the financial incentives on offer from Paris or the English Premier League.

Finally, you may have had this request before, but while a second European Cup would be the icing on the cake for this group of players a few years ago a couple of Serie A titles went missing from the honours board at the FIGC due to some ‘unfortunate’ circumstances.

The re-acknowledgment of those achievements would be the best present of all, but I understand that even this could be beyond your powers of festive ‘magic’.

Merry Christmas

Max

 

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