Gianluca Zambrotta has revealed some excruciating details in his book during the Calciopoli scandal that led to him leaving Juventus for Barcelona.
The legendary Italian full back was the last one of his kind both for Juventus and Italy, had a very long career that included reaching the UEFA Champions League finals with Juventus in 2003 along with lifting the World Cup as an Azzurri in the 2006 World Cup.
Zambrotta disclosed a lot of personal details that involved his feelings during the 2006 World Cup in his book ‘Una vita de terzino’ .
“Having the best players from Juventus and AC Milan made us win the 2006 World Cup despite Calciopoli,“ he wrote.
”I was destroyed before the World Cup began due to Calciopoli. [Marcello] Lippi’s motivating words gave me the strength to move on. Despite my injury, I was willing to play the 2006 World Cup even with one leg.
“After we beat Czech Republic 2-0, [Pavel] Nedved told us not to worry about anything and that we would reach the final. The 1-0 victory against Australia portrayed us in the most classic defensive Italian style.
“Against Ukraine, we Juventini stepped into the field with a different spirit and with the desire of dedicating the victory to [Gianluca] Pessotto. In reality, Pessotto’s incident was a motivation for us Juventini to lead Italy to the title, to bring the Cup to him.
“The victory of the 2006 World Cup was also dedicated to the Italians living at home but specially dedicated to those supporting us abroad. ”
The 37 year old defender also revealed a lot of truth regarding his move to Barcelona during Calciopoli scandal.
“My conscience was clean. Why did I ever have to pay for a fault that was not mine?,“ he asked rheoterically.
”I never understood the rush Juve had to sell me. I was never asked to stay to be part of the new beginning.”
“I honestly never really wanted to leave but in truth I was sold. I had just finished putting together a new house in Torino. When I went to Juventus headquarters to meet with Barca’s executives, Juve had already signed the documents to sell me.
“Back in the day, Alessio Secco even advised [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic to accept any important offer he might have gotten and leave.
“Any Juve player that would have been asked to the club had been sold. Those who stayed at Juve never really had a concrete offer to leave or just simply were offered important contracts in the club, unlike me.
“It really hurt me when the media started the traitor story which caused the fans to hate me. I kept expecting the club to deny and clarify what happened. It only came two years later when it was already too late.
At the end of the day had Calciopoli not occurred, I would have never left Juventus. And the scandal was certainly not my fault.”
Zambrotta also added that legendary Juventus keeper would have been sold to AC Milan but the deal could not go ahead as Milan were also involved in Calciopoli
“Not everyone knows this but Buffon had already closed the deal with Milan,“ he confessed.
”But did not go through because they were at risk too [during Calciopoli].”
“Juve had the necessity of selling many stars in order to compensate the lack of profit they received from the sponsors. They kept some, but not all.
“If they had not sold me, Ibra, Cannavaro, Thuram and Vieira, they would have gone bankrupt.”
