Turin - The Stadio delle Alpi - Capacity: 71,012 All Seater
The Stadium – The Stadio delle Alpi Str Altessano 131, 10151 Torino
In the summer of 2003, Juventus bought the stadium from the local government and immediately drew up plans to reduce the capacity to a more manageable 40,000 by removing the running track. However, the decision to relegate Juventus in the summer of 2006 has thrown these plans into disarray. This stadium is a real white elephant if ever there was one. Built for the 1990 World Cup, the stadium was unloved by the locals from day one.
It was built in an area of wasteland, close to the Trangenziale Nord motorway. The stadium looks impressive from the outside, with an almost tent-like appearance. Inside, the stadium has three tiers, although one end is more open with just two tiers and a scoreboard hanging down from the roof. There is an athletics track separating the crowd from the pitch. And here in lies the first problem. Due to the low rake of the seats in the lower tier, the athletics track and the perimeter advertising around the pitch, it is almost impossible to see anything at the low level.
Please note that for the 2006/07 season at least, Juventus will play at Torino’s Grande stadium (formerly the Olympic Stadium). Therefore please check the details overleaf on Torino for details on how to get to the stadium. Work was due to start on the redevelopment in June 2006, but due to the enforced relegation, this work has been put back at least 12 months.
Who Plays There? The whole of the world of football was rocked by the Match fixing scandal during the summer of 2006, which saw the mighty Juventus relegated, stripped of their Serie A title and denied entry into the Champions League. Added to this was the 20-point penalty that will almost certainly ensure that the team will not return to Serie A until 2008 at the earliest and probably the following season into the lucrative Champions League. Some may say that the club have finally got their just deserts. Scandal and mystery has surrounded the club for many seasons with allegations of doping, match fixing and favourable refereeing dogging them for many years. What is certain though is that the club are the most popular throughout Italy, even if they are the second team of Torino.
This point can be seen whenever Juventus play at home when hundreds of coaches from all over Italy can be seen parked around the Stadio delle Alpi, making up the crowd with a few thousand loyal locals, or the number of black and white scarves that are worn in the home sections of towns and cities, from Bari in the south to Trieste in the north. One of the reasons behind this is that many workers from all over Italy travelled to Turin in the 1950’s and 1960’s to work at the huge Lingotto Fiat factory where their allegiance to the Agnelli family grew. The club grew up as a team for the Fiat workers, located close by their original home at the Stadio Communale.
The club were originally founded in 1897 by a group of teachers from the Massimo D’Azeglio College. They won a number of regional leagues, before winning the 1905 national championships. In 1923 the Agnelli family gained control of the club and started to mold the team into a successful well-oiled machine, just as they had done to their Fiat car company.
In the early 1930’s the team won consecutive Scudetto’s, underlining their position as the number one club in Italy. Although after the 1935 season they had to be content with playing second fiddle to the great Torino team. After the Superga airplane crash in 1949 that wiped out the Torino team, Juventus picked up the mantle again and won championships in 1950 and 1952. Whilst domestic honours came thick and fast for the team, European success eluded the team until 1977 when they won the UEFA Cup, although they did reach the 1973 European Cup final, only to lose to a Cruyff inspired Ajax.
The team in the 1970’s featured such star players as Claudio Gentile, Dino Zoff and Paolo Rossi and it was no surprise that the club captured five trophies in the decade. In the early 1980’s they started their dominance of Europe with a European Cup Winners Cup final in 1984 before winning the European cup in the infamous Hysel final against Liverpool when Michel Platini scored the only goal. They followed this title by capturing their first World Cup Championship in Tokyo in December 1985 and the Super Cup the following year, thus becoming the first ever European side to have won all five major European and World trophies.
As the decade ended they won a second UEFA Cup with a victory over Fiorentina 3-1 on aggregate. However, the team were enduring a barren run on the domestic front with a nine-year gap between the championship in 1986 and 1995. They then proceeded to win five titles in the next eight years as the team assembled under the likes of Trappetoni and Capella broke the AC Milan monopoly, building a team full of stars such as Zinedine Zidane, Pavel Nedved and a young Thierry Henry.
Controversy has never been too far behind, and the club were involved in two other scandals in the late 1990’s. Firstly, there was the claim by ex-Roma manager Zdenek Zeman that Juventus has been doping their players for many years. After a long drawn out case, all charges against the club were dropped, but it did not go un-noticed. Then the club were subject to a take over approach from Libyan leader General Al-Gaddafi who bought a 7.5% share in the club in return for a 10-year sponsorship deal in his Tamoil company, and a place in the first team squad for his son.
Two successive titles followed under Fabio Capello in 2005 and 2006, with only a brief fight put up by AC Milan late in the season. However, after the results of the Moggi case were announced, these titles were taken away from the club and handed to Inter Milan. The team was built on a core of true world superstars including Patrick Viera and Fabio Cannavaro with Frenchman David Trezeguet and Alessandro Del Piero providing the goals. It is an amazing fact that since the enforced relegation, only Viera and Cannavaro have moved on out of this world-class quintet. The season has started as predicted with the club winning almost every game – although they lost in the Coppa Italia to Napoli and thus almost certainly closed the door on any European football next season.
How to get to the Stadio delle Alpi Unloved by all fans since it was completed in time for the 1990 World Cup Finals, the Stadio delle Alpi is possibly one of the biggest mistakes in Stadia planning in history. To get to the stadium, catch Tram no. 9 from Porta Nuova which takes 30 minutes, or take bus 72 from Via Bertola which can take up to 40 minutes.
For a more detailed overview of where the stadiums are in Turin, go to Footiemap.com.
How to get a ticket for the Stadio delle Alpi In the 2005-2006 season new laws have been introduced to help fight violence in football stadiums. Tickets are supposed to be issued to named individuals, upon provision of address and ID. The application of these laws is causing a headache for everyone, and as we write most clubs still haven't organised their online ticket sales or published guidelines for purchase. Some interpretations mean you need to buy your ticket in advance (with no sales on matchday at the stadium) upon presentation of ID, address and maybe even an Italian tax code. This seems to us to discriminate more against the innocent (like the overseas fans who turn out in force for Italian fixtures), than the guilty. Overseas fans buying tickets online will have been used to providing their details anyway, but now it is likely that full details are required for each member of your party. If you can't buy tickets online before your trip, purchase them as soon as you arrive in Italy. Hotels can sometimes be good sources of advice. Make sure everyone in your group takes their ID (passports are best) with them when you collect your ticket, and to the football ground.
Amazing, as it may seem, tickets for almost all games can be purchased on the gate. Juventus has so many fans around the country that they could almost fill any stadium in Italy bar their home ground. Torino fans are a little more passionate, but even so they cannot muster enough numbers to fill the stadium when home games come around. Tickets for games being played at the Grande Torino will be scarce – however, they can be booked online at http://www.listicket.it. Tickets range in price from €25 for a place in the Tribune Laterale to over €100 for a seat in the Preferencia.
When the club return back to the Stadio delle Alpi a good bet for the neutral is in the middle tier of the Tribune Est that costs €40 for a league match (albeit a Serie A one), dropping by 50% for Champions League and Italia Cup games.
Around the Stadio delle Alpi Apart from massive parking lots, there is very little in place to keep spectators amused in the run up to a game. It is also not the nicest places to be wondering before, during or after a game.
Torino - The Grande Torino - Capacity: 27,168 All Seater
About the Grande Torino Torino’s return to Serie A will mark the first time in over fifteen years that the Stadio Communale will have hosted top-flight football. Redesigned, rebuilt and renamed for the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Stadio Communale was the home of both Juventus and Torino until the Stadio Delle Alpi opened in 1990.
It was originally built in 1933 for the FIFA World Cup finals of 1934 and named after Mussolini, the stadium held over 65,000 people. The stadium also hosted matches in the 1980 European Championships including the game between Belgium and England that was nearly abandoned due to crowd trouble and Italy’s drew with England that cost them a place in the final.
The stadium is much more spectator friendly. Despite having an athletics track, the rack of the stands means that you are much closer to the action than at the Stadio delle Alpi. Juventus have also expressed an interest in playing some of their games at the stadium this year against some of the smaller teams from Serie B.
The club’s original stadium – the Filadelfia was repurchased last season and there is a long term plan to move them back here, although as finances are still tight, the focus will be retaining their place in Serie A. Last season Torino averaged over 25,000 at the Dell Alpi in Serie B. However, with only 24,000 season ticket holders this season, it is ironic that after so many years sharing the empty bowl in the north of the city it is certain that every game will be a sell out this season.
Who Plays There? After years in the wilderness of the lower divisions, and the drama of the last two seasons when the club were initially promoted at the end of the 2004/05, then relegated and bankrupted due to massive financial problems. The team that started last season’s Serie B could have only hoped for consolidation after such a traumatic summer, but under coach Gianni de Biasi the team gelled and eventually came through a Play Off win to secure a place in the top flight again, just as their inter-city rivals headed in the other direction.
It is hard for those who know little of Italian football history prior to the 1990’s to believe that Torino produced one of the greatest teams in the history of European football. The team were formed in 1906 by a group of players who were unhappy with the way Juventus wanted to run a football club. They formed a team, combining the teams of Internazionale Torino and Unione Sportiva Torinese to form Football Club Torino. They thought they had won their first title in 1927 only to have the title taken away due to a match-fixing allegation in a game versus Juventus. However, they had to wait less than 12 months to officially get their hands on the title as they romped to the top of Serie A in 1928.
In 1942/43 season the team began a period that is without match in Italian football. The team became known as the Il Grande, and during the next five seasons they won consecutive titles, as well as the double in 1943. They also went four season without defeat at home, 93 undefeated matches between January 1943 and April 1949, won the league by more than 16points (when it was 2 points for a win) on two occasions and provided over a dozen players to the national squad. This period ended in tragedy on the 4th May 1949 when the team’s plane, returning from a friendly in Portugal, crashed into the hillside at Superga, killing all on board.
The club have never recovered and after a few season spent in the lower reaches of Serie A, were relegated to Serie B in the early 1960’s. The team bounced between the two leagues for the next twenty years although it did win the Coppa Italia in 1993, a season after reaching the UEFA Cup final in 1992 when they lost to Ajax on away goals.
After another long period in Serie B the club were promoted back to Serie A in 2005. However, not for the first time in Italian football history they were demoted back down to Serie B due to financial irregularities. The team did not let this fact beat them and after a playoff win versus Mantova in June 2006 were promoted back to Serie A.
The good news for this season is that the club have managed to secure the services of experienced goalkeeper Christian Abbiati from AC Milan, and his experience will be absolutely key. The goals will hopefully be produced by Alessandro Rosina and Roberto Stellone who scored 20 goals between them last season. This season has seen the club pick up a few good games and sit in 14th place as we end November.
How to get to the Stadio Grande Torino From the city centre you can get a number of the tramways. Line 4 runs regularly from Porta Nuova station, whilst line 10 runs from Porta Susa. A taxi from the city centre should cost no more than €10. If you want to walk then allow yourself 30 minutes at least. Head down the Via Paolo Sacchi that runs to the right of Porto Nuova station. Carry on down this road, as it becomes Corso Filippo Turati. This road will eventually pass to the east of the stadium.
For a more detailed overview of where the stadiums are in Turin, go to Footiemap.com.
How to get a ticket for the Stadio Grande Torino With just 27,000 seats in the stadium, and nearly 24,000 season ticket holders and members, tickets for most games will be at a premium this season. If any tickets for matches do reach a general sale then they will be sold via http://www.ticketone.it as well as in person from the stadium. However, for the next season at least it is worth making your ticket arrangements before you arrive in town.
Around the Stadio Grande Torino The stadium is located in the south limits of the city and in the middle of a residential area. There are very few bars and café in the area, so stock up in the city centre before heading down to the stadium.
The airport is located ten miles north of the city centre. Easiest way to reach the city centre is via the regular train service to Stazione Dora (every 30mins - €3) taking less than 20 minutes. There is also a regular bus running every 30 minutes that stops both at Stazione Porta Susa and Porta Nuova train stations. A single ticket costs €5. Return tickets are available from the newspaper kiosk outside Porta Nuova station. A taxi should cost around €25.
The airport is currently serviced on a daily basis by British Airways from London Gatwick from £45 each way, Easyjet from London Luton from £6.99 each way and Ryanair from London Stansted from 1p depending on what is on offer at the time of booking. During the winter these flights tend to fill up fast as Turin is a major winter sports destination.
The Stadium – The Stadio delle Alpi
About the Grande Torino