La Vecchia Signora

La Vecchia Signora (“the Old Lady”) is the nickname of Juventus Football Club. Juventus, colloquially known as Juve, is a professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top flight of Italian football. Founded in 1897 by a group of Torinese students, the club wears a black and white striped home kit and has played home matches in different grounds around its city, the latest being the 41,507-capacity Juventus Stadium.

Founded with the name of Sport-Club Juventus, initially as an athletics club, it is the second oldest of its kind still active in the country after Genoa’s football section and has competed in the top flight league (reformulated as Serie A) since its debut after changing its name to Foot-Ball Club Juventus, being managed by the industrial Agnelli family almost continuously.

The relationship between the club and that dynasty is the oldest and longest in national sports, making Juventus one of the first professional sporting clubs ante litteram in the country, having established itself as a major force in the national stage and at confederation level and becoming one of the first ten wealthiest in world football in terms of value, revenue and profit, being listed on the Borsa italiana.

The club’s fan base is the largest at national level and one of the largest worldwide. Unlike most European sporting supporters’ groups, which are often concentrated around their own club’s city of origin, it is widespread throughout the whole country and the Italian diaspora, making Juventus a symbol of anticampanilismo (“anti-parochialism”) and italianità (“Italianness”).

The previous modification of the Juventus badge took place, when the emblem of the team changed to a black-and-white oval shield of a type used by Italian ecclesiastics. It is divided in five vertical stripes: two white stripes and three black stripes, inside which are the following elements, while in its upper section the name of the society superimposed on a white convex section, over golden curvature (gold for honour). The white silhouette of a charging bull is in the lower section of the oval shield, superimposed on a black old French shield and the charging bull is a symbol of the comune of Turin. There is also a black silhouette of a mural crown above the black spherical triangle’s base. This is reminiscence to Augusta Tourinorum, the old city of the Roman era which the present capital of Piedmont region is its cultural heiress.

The badge shows the word Juventus on top, with two capital Js shown together in different fonts with a small opening between them. Juventus is the first team in association football history to adopt a star with one above their badge to represent their tenth Italian Football Championship and Serie A title that has since become popularized with other clubs as well.

Juventus organized a project called JKids for its junior supporters on its website. Along with this project, Juventus also has a mascot to all its fans which is called J. J is a cartoon-designed zebra, black and white stripes with golden edge piping on its body, golden shining eyes, and three golden stars on the front of its neck.

During its history, the club has acquired a number of nicknames, la Vecchia Signora (the Old Lady) being the best example. The “old” part of the nickname is a pun on Juventus which means “youth” in Latin. It was derived from the age of the Juventus star players towards the middle of the 1930s. The “lady” part of the nickname is how fans of the club affectionately referred to it before the 1930s.

The club is also nicknamed la Fidanzata d’Italia (the Girlfriend of Italy), because over the years it has received a high level of support from Southern Italian immigrant workers (particularly from Naples and Palermo), who arrived in Turin to work for FIAT since the 1930s. Other nicknames include; [La] Madama (Piedmontese for Madam), i bianconeri (the black-and-whites), le zebre (the zebras)[e] in reference to Juventus’ colours.

I gobbi (the hunchbacks) is the nickname that is used to define Juventus supporters, but is also used sometimes for team’s players. The most widely accepted origin of gobbi dates to the fifties, when the bianconeri wore a large jersey. When players ran on the field, the jersey, which had a laced opening at the chest, generated a bulge over the back (a sort of parachute effect), making the players look hunchbacked.

The official anthem of Juventus is Juve (storia di un grande amore), or Juve (story of a great love) in English, written by Alessandra Torre and Claudio Guidetti, in the version of the singer and musician Paolo Belli.

After the first two years (1897 and 1898), during which Juventus played in the Parco del Valentino and Parco Cittadella, their matches were held in the Piazza d’Armi Stadium until 1908, except in 1905 (the first year of the scudetto) and in 1906, years in which it played at the Corso Re Umberto.

Juventus invested around €120 million to build a new ground, the Juventus Stadium, on the site of delle Alpi. Unlike the old ground, there is not a running track and instead the pitch is only 7.5 metres away from the stands. The capacity is 41,507.

Juventus is the best-supported football club in Italy, with over 12 million fans or tifosi, which represent approximately 34% of the total Italian football fans according to a research published by Italian research agency Demos & Pi, as well as one of the most supported football clubs in the world, with over 300 million supporters (41 million in Europe alone), particularly in the Mediterranean countries to which a large number of Italian diaspora have emigrated. The Torinese side has fan clubs branches across the globe.

Demand for Juventus tickets in occasional home games held away from Turin is high, suggesting that Juventus have stronger support in other parts of the country. Juventus is widely and especially popular throughout mainland Southern Italy, Sicily and Malta, leading the team to have one of the largest followings in its away matches, more than in Turin itself.

Juventus have significant rivalries with two main clubs. Their traditional rivals are fellow Turin club Torino; matches between the two sides are known as the Derby della Mole (Turin Derby). The rivalry dates back to 1906 as Torino was founded by break-away Juventus players and staff.

Their most high-profile rivalry is with Internazionale, another big Serie A club located in Milan, the capital of the neighbouring region of Lombardy. Matches between these two clubs are referred to as the Derby d’Italia (Derby of Italy) and the two regularly challenge each other at the top of the league table, hence the intense rivalry. Until the Calciopoli scandal which saw Juventus forcibly relegated, the two were the only Italian clubs to have never played below Serie A. Notably, the two sides are the first and the second most supported clubs in Italy and the rivalry has intensified since the later part of the 1990s; reaching its highest levels ever post-Calciopoli, with the return of Juventus to Serie A.

The rivalry with A.C. Milan is a rivalry between two clubs with greater basin of supporters as well as those with the greatest turnover and stock market value in the country. The match-ups between Milan and Juventus, is regarded as the championship of Serie A, and both teams were often fighting for the top positions of the standings, sometimes even decisive for the award of the title. They also have rivalries with Roma, Fiorentina and Napoli.

The Juventus youth set-up has been recognized as one of the best in Italy for producing young talents. While not all graduates made it to the first team, many have enjoyed successful careers in the Italian top flight. Like Dutch club Ajax and many Premier League clubs, Juventus operates several satellite clubs and football schools outside of the country (i.e. United States, Canada, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Switzerland) and numerous camps in the local region to expand talent scouting.

The youth system is also notable for its contribution to the Italian national senior and youth teams. World Cup winner Gianpiero Combi, Gold Medal and World Cup winner Pietro Rava, Giampiero Boniperti, Roberto Bettega, World Cup hero Paolo Rossi and more recently Claudio Marchisio and Sebastian Giovinco are a number of former graduates who have gone on to make the first team and full Italy squad.