Marcello Lippi, the last manager to guide Juventus to Champions League glory, believes luck is all that is missing in the Old Lady’s quest to taste success in Europe again.
Juventus have fallen just short of lifting their third European Cup in two of the last three seasons, losing out to Barcelona in 2015 and Real Madrid in 2017, before suffering a controversial exit at the hands of Zinedine Zidane’s side in this season’s quarter-finals.
Lippi masterminded the Turin side’s success in 1996, when they beat Ajax in the final, but the World Cup winner doesn’t believe current boss Max Allegri needs to tinker with tactics or personnel – all he needs is a visit from Lady Luck.
“When a team in the last three years makes the final twice, and is continuously one of the best six, seven or eight teams in Europe, there is nothing missing, just luck,” Lippi told Sport360 at Hublot’s Match of Friendship in Dubai.
Marcello Lippi with Christian Karembeu at Hublot’s Match of Friendship
“Now in the semi-finals there is Roma and Liverpool. Liverpool is 20 points away from Manchester City, therefore you cannot say Liverpool is better than City. Roma is 18 points behind Juventus, so you cannot say they are better.
“The only thing that is missing is a bit of luck. The thing that was missing the other night in Madrid was that. If 10 more seconds had passed in the match, then Juventus would have gone through in extra time.”
While Allegri has been unable to repeat Lippi’s feat on the European stage, the current China coach sees many similarities between himself and the Juventus boss, who is on course to win a fourth successive Serie A title with the Old Lady.
“We have many things in common. We both have a modern day vision of football, and we have the habit of continuously changing players, as well as ways of playing,” Lippi explained.
“For that reason, I see myself in may ways like Allegri. We are both Tuscan, we were born 30 kilometres away from each other. We both joined Juventus at 46-years-old and we both won the Scudetto in our first year at Juventus.”
Juventus boss Max Allegri could win a fourth-straight Serie A title
After Lippi’s second spell at Juve, he led Italy to World Cup glory, and while the four-time winners failed to qualify for this summer’s tournament in Russia, the 70-year-old insists there is no need to panic.
“Italian football is not in crisis. Italy have won four World Cups. Only Brazil have won more. A life of success does not exist, once in a while you lose,” Lippi added. “How many countries in the world would have liked to win four World Cups?”
