13 January 2019
Seven wins, 11 stars and a pretty clear focus on attack: introducing the Bianconeri’s Italian Super Cup heroes.
Gianluigi Buffon
Buffon was in goal for five of the seven Super Cups we’ve won so far. The most memorable came early on. His first saw Juventus beat Parma – Buffon’s former team – in Libya, while the following year it was Buffon’s key save on Cristian Brocchi that helped the Bianconeri to defeat AC Milan in New York and go some way to avenging their loss to the Rossoneri in the 2002/03 Champions League final at Old Trafford.
Stephan Lichtsteiner
Lichtsteiner came back to haunt his former club as Juve beat Lazio to Super Cup glory at the Olimpico in 2013. The Swiss full-back scored the third in the Bianconeri’s 4-0 win, slotting past Federico Marchetti after a delightful backheel from Mirko Vucinic. Lichtsteiner played a key role in two of Juve’s other goals, providing the assist for Giorgio Chiellini to make it 2-0 and forcing a save from Marchetti in the build up to the fourth, with Paul Pogba then teeing up Carlos Tevez to score on his debut match in Italy.
Giorgio Chiellini
Chiellini scored probably the most unusual goal of his career in that 2013 Super Cup victory over Lazio – it’s not every day you see a centre-back scoring into an empty net at the end of a break, after all! It was stunning play from Chiellini, who showed quick thinking and a decent turn of pace to score the most memorable of the four goals in the defeat of Lazio.
Kwadwo Asamoah
Roberto Baggio scored against Napoli in the Italian Super Cup on his Juventus debut. So did Kwadwo Asamoah, albeit with two key differences: the Ghanaian scored his goal with his left foot, and his strike – unlike that of the Italian legend – meant Juve lifted the cup at the end of the game.
Paul Pogba
The fastest goal in Italian Super Cup history. Pogba started the 2013 Super Cup on the bench, but was called into action on the 20-minute mark after Claudio Marchisio was forced off with injury. One hundred and eighty seconds later, Pogba found the net to spark a big Juve win.
Antonio Conte
During his playing days, Conte was part of the teams that won the Super Cup in 1996 and 1997. He wore the armband for the latter win, scoring the last goal of a 3-0 defeat of Vicenza before doing the captain’s honours and lifting the cup skywards. As coach, Conte won the Super Cup at both attempts: a 4-2 win after extra time over Napoli in 2012 and a 4-0 defeat of Lazio the following year.
Alessandro Del Piero
Tripoli, 25 August 2002. The pitch at the June 11 Stadium in the Libyan capital was more sand than turf, but the greatest champions step up when faced with adversity. Sure enough, the Bianconeri’s legendary No.10 dominated the game, producing some lovely play and scoring a brace to render Marco Di Vaio’s equaliser irrelevant. Perhaps that moustache was a lucky charm for Del Piero…
Gianluca Vialli
Vialli was the match-winner as Juventus clinched their first Italian Super Cup title in January 1996. A foggy Stadio Delle Alpi was the setting for another instalment of the rivalry between Juventus and Parma, who had spent the previous season engaged in a two-team tussle for supremacy which played out across Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup. It was an easy goal – a tap-in into an empty net, but the foggy conditions and significance of the goal have ensured its place in Bianconeri folklore.
Filippo Inzaghi
Inzaghi’s maiden Juventus appearance came in the Italian Super Cup after he joined at the end of an impressive season at Atalanta. And the striker’s performance in the 3-0 win over Vicenza showed everyone exactly why the Bianconeri had been so keen to sign Inzaghi, who had finished the previous season as Serie A’s top scorer: he scored twice inside ten minutes to give the Juventus faithful a glimpse of things to come.
Paulo Dybala
Paulomania took just 12 minutes to take hold in the same game, as Dybala came off the bench on the hour mark to make his Juventus debut. Twelve minutes later, the Argentine found the net to score the second goal in Juve’s 2-0 win: Mandzukic started the move off, Pogba teed the ball up and Dybala did the rest to send the fans wild.
Mario Mandzukic
Another unforgettable debut. Mandzukic scored the opener in the 2015 Super Cup in Shanghai, showcasing his indomitable aerial strength to head home from Stefano Sturaro’s cross for 1-0. The giant Croatian would go on to produce similarly important goals in countless other big games during a golden age for the Bianconeri.
