They began to scale the barriers around the pitch long before the final whistle blew. Six long years these fans had waited to see Juventus return to the pinnacle of Italian football, yet as time ticked down at Trieste's Stadio Nereo Rocco the thought of having to delay festivities for even one more second was becoming too much. After all the false dawns, the setbacks, the controversies and the collapses since Calciopoli they just wanted it to be over. They wanted to celebrate a Scudetto once more.
Confirmation that this title was theirs had arrived roughly three minutes before full time, as word filtered through that Maicon had given Internazionale a 4-2 lead in the Milan derby. Few will have fully comprehended the drama unfolding at San Siro, where the Brazilian's jaw-dropping strike from outside the box provided a fitting conclusion to Serie A's barmiest and most entertaining fixture of the season. None will have cared. All that mattered was that victories for both Inter and Juve – 2-0 up against Cagliari – now seemed assured. Those results would make the Bianconeri champions.
The final whistle unleashed pandemonium in Trieste. Although this was technically an away game for Juventus, they were playing at a venue which is far closer to Turin than to Cagliari's true home in Sardinia – the Isolani having temporarily relocated after their owner Massimo Cellino lost patience with the shabby state of the communally owned Stadio Sant'Elia. In a crowd of roughly 16,000 on Sunday night, Juventus's fans outnumbered those of their nominal hosts by a ratio of 15 to one.
Those supporters pouring on to the pitch quickly outnumbered Juventus's players by many times that figure. Giorgio Chiellini was mobbed, the player's face a mixture of delirium and faint concern as they launched him, shirtless, time and again into the night sky. In among the madness, a group of fans made off with a camera belonging to Italy's Sky Sport. Others simply stood on the field and held their banners aloft. One bore a picture of the captain, Alessandro Del Piero, along with the simple message: "Thank you for existing".
Juventus's players eventually retreated to their dressing room. It was some time before stewards were able to clear out the tunnel of fans and create enough space on the pitch for them to re-emerge and toast their triumph properly – with bottles of champagne bearing the number 30. This will be officially recorded as Juventus's 28th title, but the club continues to reject the Calciopoli verdicts which stripped them of their 2005 and 2006 Scudetti.
That much was affirmed – lest the bottles had not been clear enough – by the club's sporting director, Beppe Marotta, at full time, when he said that the club did indeed intend to add a third golden star to the badge on their shirts. The manager, Antonio Conte, had sought to sidestep the issue when he was pressed by reporters at full time, saying: "What number Scudetto is this? Number one, because it's the first I've won as a manager."
If debates over Juventus's third star are certain to rage on for months and years then Conte would prefer it if they could at least be put on hold for a few days, so this success can be celebrated in its own right. Not only have his team claimed their first piece of major silverware since Calciopoli, but they also stand one game away from an unbeaten season. Only two teams have previously achieved such a feat in Serie A – Perugia, who still didn't win the league, in 1978-79 and Milan in 1991-92. Neither was in a 38-game season.
Juventus's performance in their first campaign under Conte has gone far beyond what anyone could have imagined for a team who had finished seventh in each of their last two seasons. With one game still to play, they have already collected 23 points more than they managed in total last season. They have also reached the final of the Coppa Italia, where they will face Napoli in two weeks' time.
There is plenty of credit to go around. The signing of Andrea Pirlo on a free transfer following his release by Milan will go down as one of the most brilliant pieces of business ever conducted by the club – and one of the Rossoneri's most boneheaded. If the true picture is a little more nuanced, the player not having produced consistent performances of this calibre for some time before his departure from Milan, then his importance to Juventus is undeniable. His 13 assists lead the division.
Pirlo was not the only astute signing made by Juventus last summer, though, his fellow midfielder Arturo Vidal arriving from Bayer Leverkusen for €10.5m and going on to become the team's key ball-winner, winning more tackles per game (5.4) than anyone else in the division. Mirko Vucinic, signed for €15m from Roma, drove fans to distraction with his selfishness in possession and tendency to disappear from games, yet also scored a string of crucial goals. His was the strike which set Juventus on the way to victory after just six minutes on Sunday.
More than any player, many feel that the key upgrade made last summer might just have been the opening of Juventus Stadium. Pirlo, upon playing in the venue for the first time, expressed the belief that it would be even more intimidating for opposing teams than a packed San Siro – on account of the close "English-style" stands which placed supporters right on top of the pitch. Juventus have collected six more points at home this season than Milan.
But the true star of the show has undoubtedly been Conte himself. The manager arrived with only a modest CV – he had taken each of Bari and Siena up from Serie B, with an unsuccessful spell at Atalanta inbetween – but the full backing of supporters who believed that as a former captain he would appreciate the significance of the role. He arrived declaring this team "must get used to using the word Scudetto again", then promptly refused to acknowledge reporters' suggestions that his team even had a shot at the title until the final two months of the season.
Conte was similarly swift in dropping his commitment to the 4-2-4 which had served him so well thus far in his managerial career. He had expressed reservations to the board about the signing of Pirlo specifically because the player did not fit the holding midfielder mould required for such a formation, but rather than force square pegs into round holes, he subsequently adjusted his approach. By developing different variations on 4-3-3 and then later 3-5-2 he was able to not only get the best out of his squad but give himself different options to combat varied opponents.
While the whole squad embraced his ideals of possession football and a relentless high pressing game – with the exception of one or two high-profile players who subsequently found themselves marginalised – his greatest achievements were in the defensive phase. Stephan Lichtsteiner was the only significant addition made to a backline that conceded 47 goals last year, yet this season under Conte Juventus have allowed only 19 – 13 fewer than anyone else in the division. The clean sheet against Cagliari was their 21st of the season – a club record.
That was a tribute to the renewed form of Gigi Buffon but also the manager, whose faith in Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli at centre-back was such that he was prepared to even ask Chiellini to play out on the left. Each responded with one of the best seasons of their careers, Bonucci proving himself adept not only as a defender but also a distributor of the ball who could help launch his team onto another offensive.
Throughout the campaign, the one knock on this Juventus team was the claim that they did not possess a match-winner such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic who could beat teams on his own even when the rest were performing poorly. Time and again the Swede has dug Milan out of a hole, scoring more league goals (28) than he has ever before in a single season. And yet this is the first season in which Ibrahimovic has failed to finish top of his domestic league since 2003.
In the final analysis, Juventus did not need a fuoriclasse like Ibra in their starting XI. They already had one picking the team.
Talking points
So, that derby. Six goals; three penalties – one the result of an absolutely scandalous decision; Júlio César squaring up to Zlatan Ibrahimovic after the award of said penalty and telling him that he was going to miss, before sticking his tongue out and making all manner of bizarre facial expressions; Ibrahimovic then sticking a perfectly struck penalty past César; a 40-yard volley from Wesley Sneijder that had to be pushed out from under the bar; that goal from Maicon … oh, and yet more stunning choreography at San Siro: from Milan's supporters poking fun – "Seeing you in May is to see another mirage" – to Inter's incredible depiction of the Madonnina that covered an entire stand. The quality may have been mixed – some of the defending, on both sides, was atrocious – but the entertainment was exceptional. All this with a title on the line. What more could you want from a derby?
This was, incidentally, Massimiliano Allegri's fifth derby in charge of Milan – and in every one he has faced a different Inter manager. The chances of Andrea Stramaccioni hanging around long enough for the next one appear to be increasing rapidly, with the owner Massimo Moratti telling reporters: "I think he can continue [in the job]". It feels deserved – the team having collected 17 points in eight matches since he arrived, when they had just 41 from 29 before he arrived. The players, also, appear to be on board. "We hope we can continue with him," said Diego Milito – whose hat-trick took his personal tally to eight goals in as many Milan derbies. "We are working well."
If an expectation has too often existed in Serie A that teams with nothing left to play for not only could but should roll over in their remaining games, then there have certainly been plenty prepared to buck the trend this season. After Parma dealt Inter's Champions League hopes a blow in the previous round of fixtures, this weekend it was Bologna who knocked Napoli off course with a 2-0 win. Udinese – aided by two red cards dealt to their opponents Genoa – were able to stay on course, moving three points clear of both Napoli and Inter and staying two ahead of Lazio, who won at Atalanta. All four teams can still claim fourth with the right combination of results, but Udinese are the clear favourites –needing just a draw in their final game away to Catania to secure third. It would be hard to overstate the achievement of manager Francesco Guidolin should they succeed.
The one dampener for Udinese was the suggestion from their captain and leading scorer Antonio Di Natale that this may be his last season. "I'm going to play in the European Championships and then stop," was his brief, unqualified comment to reporters at full-time – and while further clarification is required, it is not unthinkable that he could be considering stepping away from the game at 34. A long-term knee condition has long obliged him to undergo almost constant physio between games, and he expressed concern following the on-pitch death of Livorno's Piermario Morosini – a close friend of his – about how many games footballers were now being made to play.
Not a bad weekend for goals, this one. Beyond Maicon's strike, highlights included Lorik Cana's violent top-corner finish for Lazio, and Sebastian Giovinco's looping 25-yard volley against Siena.
At the bottom of the table, Lecce's hopes of survival took another blow with a 1-0 defeat at home to Fiorentina, though Genoa's loss the next day means they are still technically able to escape relegation should they win, and the Grifone lose, next week. Encouraging, given the recent climate in Serie A, were the warm send-offs that fans of both Lecce and the already relegated fans gave to their teams, with applause and chants of support at full-time.
And finally … Only in a week like this could a match like Palermo 4-4 Chievo wind up as an afterthought.
Results: Atalanta 0-2 Lazio, Bologna 2-0 Napoli, Cagliari 0 - 2 Juventus, Inter 4-2 Milan, Lecce 0-1 Fiorentina, Novara 3-0 Cesena, Palermo 4-4 Chievo, Roma 2-2 Catania, Siena 0-2 Parma,
Udinese 2-0 Genoa
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