An objective left to get the Triplete. Juventus wants to break the 21-years spell and will have a second chance after Berlin's. Giuseppe Marotta, the general manager of the bianconeri, knows that well and has that Champions League final in mind since last summer.
He told Tuttosport that "Reaching a final is the achievement of a whole project: thought, mediated and realized. Berlin was an addition of non calculated factors, even if that journey has a high value. Cardiff's final is a project born last summer, with transfers made to reach this objective. Andrea Agnelli, Pavel Nedved, Fabio Paratici and myself, with the coach, were saying that we've understood how things work in Italy and wanted to see if we could make it in Europe. We lacked experience and "grinta". We've got these things by making people already in the club and in the team grow, they've gained security and experience in the past few years. We've also added strong players like Khedira, Mandzukic or Dani Alves to the team".
About working with Paratici: "There is a clear division of tasks. He makes the first mercato job that is the selection, then I come up and make the decisions. It's his responsibilities, as a manager, to monitor what's going on around, while I'm in charge of managing the club. We choose players on two levels: we can take an already established champion, like Dani Alves, Mandzukic, Khedira or Higuain... And then we can also search for a young talent. But that players needs to have the qualities ans the right attitude to become a champion, like Dybala has. Great abilities aren't enough no more: these are expressed on the field but in order to become a champion, you must have intellectual qualities too and especially a winning attitude. I don't work on the mercato most of the year because it's Fabio Paratici's work with his staff to monitor players, I just synthesize that in the summer period.".
About Dybala: "In his new contract we've considered the player's value which works with his value on the market. We've got the intention of working together a long time. Paulo doesn't have a value, this value is given at the time of a transfer. If I had put an exit-clause on Pogba's contract three years before he got away, I would have said that 60 million euros would have been enough but we've sold him for 110 million. These clauses are crazy, I won't ever put one on my players. It makes you in a bad position. If there wasn't a clause on Higuain's contract, would De Laurentiis have sold him? I don't know... 90 million euros are 90 million euros!".
About the mercato: "It was fun this year. It was probably one of the best acquisition campaign ever. I don't want people to wait this kind of campaign every year though. We want to upgrade the team and some tactic changes imply reinforcements but we've already got a strong team; not selling our champions is important. Something's missing upfront? Yes, even considering Pjaca's injury. Midfield and defense? We'll see. It's not easy finding players that can improve but we are searching for them. The best transfer? When we got Pirlo, before Conte's arrival. People thought he was done, but if "the legs are up", a champion only needs new challenges. It was over at Milan, he found an environment that has regenerated him here. And his time by us hasn't only been by the pitch but he also gave a model to follow. We don't want to sell anyone. If there's a player that wants to leave that's something else but until now, that's not even a question. We don't have to make gains".
About Kean: "I hope he won't be a victim of his contract because rules don't allow to keep him until he's old enough to understand how strong he really is. We then must deal with his agent, Mind Raiola, permanently. And there are certain economic parameters on his salary we can't exceed, also in question of ethic and morals".
To conclude, Marotta speaks about Allegri: "We hope he doesn't ask to go away, we'd like to continue with Max as he's shown he's a great coach and he's won so much with us he's already one of the best in the world. It's not a hot topic right now though as everyone's objective is to go to Cardiff and win, after that game we'll sit and talk, not only with Allegri but with everyone".
