During 2006, the teams which got qualified for FIFA world cups were busy in preparing themselves to play world cup at Germany. On similar note, Italy was also preparing themselves and ahead of world cup the shocking news Calciopoli Scandal broke out where teams like Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina were alleged to be involved in match fixing scandal in Serie A, which is the top tier for Italian football. Several investigations conducted and the recorded telephonic calls were produced as evidences.
Despite being described as a match-fixing scandal, the actual allegation relates Juventus (old lady) managing director Luciano Moggi telephonic conversations in attempting to influence results by picking certain referees he considered more favorable to Juventus or more likely to err in favor of Old Lady on a dubious call. A few Italian newspapers also produced the transcripts of recorded telephone conversations of Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo and both of them had conversations with several officials of Italian football to influence referee appointments.
Initially Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina were relegated to Serie B (second tier in Italian football league) and all these clubs appealed. Lazio and Fiorentina were allowed to stay in Serie A with points deduction and Old Lady was not only relegated to Serie B, but they were also stripped the scudetto titles (Serie A winner) for the year 2004-05 and 2006-06. It was quite shocking and challenging for the Turin club which had a huge fan base not only in Italy, but across the world. Now they need to start the season 2006-07 in Serie B and due the relegation to Serie B, several star players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Patrick Vieira, Lilian Thuram and Gianluca Zambrotta left Old Lady.
Luckily for Juventus, Gianluigi Buffon, Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved and David Trezeguet decided to stay and rescue Old Lady from trouble, with Del Piero famously saying “a true gentleman never leaves his lady.” Juventus didn’t take long to come back up. With fan favorite Didier Deschamps leading the club, the Juventus Serie B journey lasted just a year as the old lady returned to the top flight, Serie A, which was a remarkable comeback.
With all these challenges, Italy won 2006 world cup by edging out France 5-3 through tie-breaker where the famous headbutting incident between Marco Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane happened.
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