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THE OLD LADY

How many games did Juventus lose when there were relegated to the second division in 2006?

Juventus didn't go the entire 2006/07 Serie B season undefeated, despite being able to call upon Gigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini, Pavel Nedved and Alessandro Del Piero

It was the ultimate David v Goliath story.

Juventus, winners of 29 top flight championships, mixing it with AliboLeffe, Triestina and Spezia in the Italian second division.

The Old Lady spent the 2006/07 season in Serie B following the Calciopoli scandal.

A sad time for Juventus football club

AFP
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A sad time for Juventus football club

Relegation from Serie A saw Fabio Cannavaro, Lilian Thuram, Gianluca Zambrotta, Adrian Mutu, Patrick Vieira and Zlatan Ibrahimovic take flight.

But Gianluigi Buffon, Giorgio Chiellini, Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved, Mauro Camoranesi and David Trezeguet remained to try and guide Juventus back up to Serie A at the first attempt.

Surely, with that crop of world-class stars, they sailed through the season unbeaten? Not quite.

A real change of scenery

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A real change of scenery

Mantova 1-0 Juventus, 13 January 2007

Didier Deschamps’ side eased their way into second division life by going 17 games unbeaten. No surprises there then.

By the 18th game, against Mantova, Del Piero had taken to trying to score bicycle kicks from outside the box.

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But Juventus would leave Lombardy with bloody noses.

Robert Kovac, a player with Bayern Munich and a half-century of caps for Croatia on his footballing CV, put the ball in his own net to self-inflict a first Serie B loss on Juventus.

Brescia 3-1 Juventus, 10 March 2007

Following the loss to Mantova Juventus went on a seven-match run unbeaten run, spearheaded by nine Del Piero goals.

But then they got Serafini’d. By that we mean Matteo Serafini scored a hat-trick, against the great Gigi Buffon, to help Brescia beat Juventus 3-1.

We’d even go as far to say it’s one of the best hat-trick we’ve ever seen.

Bari 1-0 Juventus, 3 June 2007

By June Juventus had been promoted and lost their manager, with Deschamps stepping down after falling out with the board.

Giancarlo Corradini stepped in, with just two games left in the season. What could go wrong?

Bari won a feisty battle in the penultimate game of the season, as Davide Carrus scored the winner.

Last minute fireworks sparked when Nicola Legrottaglie was sent off for Juventus only for Massimo Ganci to miss the resulting penalty.

Lovely kit that

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Lovely kit that

Juventus 2-3 Spezia, 10 June 2007

The last game of the season. A time for joy and celebration.

But no one told Spezia, who stunned Turin and became the only team to beat Juventus at home that season.

Juventus finished the season with four losses to their name. Under normal circumstances that would have been impressive, but the 2006/07 season was anything but normal.