First up was Paulo Amaral, born in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s, midfielder and captain of Juventus in 1962-63. He was the first Brazilian coach in the history of the Lady, and the only one at least until the arrival of Thiago Motta, a Brazilian by birth but with only Italian blood running through his veins. He feels Italian, as evidenced by his choice of blue shirt. The new Juventus coach has had a distinguished European career (he joined Barcelona when he was 17), but his football training ground has been in South America. Born in São Bernardo do Campo, a city in the São Paulo metropolitan area, he carries with him the idea of experiencing football as a pleasure and pure enjoyment. For Thiago, football is about giving emotions, and in Bologna they experienced a lot of them last season while in Juventus they haven’t tasted them in a while and can’t wait to find them again. Thiago will try to reignite the spark with the power of ideas and a little of the Brazilian spirit that he possesses and that he will be able to make good use of in Juventus since Juve, after the departure of Alex Sandro, with Douglas Luiz has brought the green and the golden players have returned to three in the team: from the captain Danilo to the totem of defense Gleison Bremer and even the new signing taken from Aston Villa. In addition to the technician, there will be four Brazilians for the Lady, who will try to move at the pace of the samba, returning to being captivating and full of vitality without distorting themselves, while keeping their Italian essence intact. There is a fine thread that connects Amaral and Motta, and it is not only the country of birth. The “Iron Sergeant” (as he was nicknamed because of his exhausting training and his inflexible intensity) was the first to use zonal marking in our football, in his only season with Juventus before also coaching Genoa. He was revolutionary for his very attacking style (4-2-4), and was a pioneer of the positional football that Thiago adopts, even if only one Cup of the Alps (the cup held between 1960 and 1987) remains in the records, after his victory over Atalanta. Motta took the opposite path, starting from Genoa and ending in Madama’s living room, where the task of rebuilding and returning to the fight for the Italian league awaits him.
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