If the Cinque Maggio, which we somehow recounted yesterday, is Inter’s worst Serie A nightmare, the equal for Juventus is the notorious Diluvio di Perugia (“Downpour in Perugia”), which befell on Could 14, 2000.
That was the day when the Bianconeri misplaced 0-1 to Perugia within the final matchday of the 1999/2000 marketing campaign and noticed Lazio move them within the final lap to win their second Scudetto.
What makes Juventus’ heartbreak even more durable to bear is that it materialized with a couple of hour of delay from the anticipated league conclusion. It got here on the finish of a match that was suspended, then restarted and that, in line with Juve’s aspect of the story, ought to have relatively been cancelled and postponed.
Juventus traveled to Perugia sitting first within the Serie A desk with a two-point lead over Sven Goran Eriksson’s Lazio. All they wanted was a tie, and a tie they acquired till half time, when the 2 sides went for the break with no targets scored.
That was when destiny determined that issues needed to take a considerably completely different flip. A sudden, violent downpour fell over the town of Perugia and, within the area a couple of minutes, turned the turf of the Renato Curi Stadium right into a wetland.
The referee was Pierluigi Collina, the perfect of the perfect in these days, however even he was uncertain about what to do. Ideally, all Serie A video games ought to have been performed and accomplished on the similar time, particularly because the Scudetto was nonetheless at stake.
However the Renato Curi was actually unplayable, the pitch being soaking moist and the ball hardly in a position to bounce. As the opposite video games often restarted and Lazio went on to wrap a snug 3-0 win over Reggina, Collina waited and waited.
Just one hour after the half time break, he lastly ordered the gamers to take the sphere once more, the pitch situation being simply barely acceptable to host a soccer match. However regardless that what ensued might hardly be referred to as a soccer match, all Juventus needed to do was hold the Grifoni at bay for 45 extra minutes within the quagmire of the Renato Curi. In spite of everything, Perugia had already averted relegation and had nothing left to battle for, proper?
Their fiery president, Luciano Gaucci, didn’t suppose so, although. “That sport was imagined to be mounted,” he as soon as recounted. “Juventus needed to win, however I advised my gamers that I’d ship them on a retreat so far as China in the event that they didn’t give the whole lot they’d.”
And whereas the match-fixing allegations have been most likely a part of Gaucci’s standard exaggerations, his threats could have been simply sufficient to encourage his defender Alessandro Calori.
With 53 minutes on the clock, Calori got here up with a pointy right-footed shot that one way or the other made its well beyond the Juve goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar.
A younger Carlo Ancelotti, sitting on Juventus’ bench for what was his first high-profile teaching job, tried the whole lot he might to attract degree, however the Perugia wall held till the (very late) full time whistle.
At 6.03 PM, Collina blew for full time, certifying Juventus’ suicide, delivering Lazio essentially the most surprising pleasure, and sparking an limitless controversy – one which, in good Italian soccer dramatic type, nonetheless stands – about whether or not the sport ought to have been postponed or not.
