Congrats to Juventus! I was optimistic that

[Lazie]

AC Milan would have pipped that at the line. To go through the season undefeated .... respect is due.

[Me]

They put together a decent squad this year. Barzagli and Bonnucci finally added some stability to the defense. Arturo Vidal has been a big improvement over Felipe Melo and in Vucinic they got one of the best forwards in the world.

Will be interesting to see how some of the players handle the Champions League and if they can manage when the squad is stretched.

[Dunny]

They put together a decent squad this year. Barzagli and Bonnucci finally added some stability to the defense. Arturo Vidal has been a big improvement over Felipe Melo and in Vucinic they got one of the best forwards in the world.

Will be interesting to see how some of the players handle the Champions League and if they can manage when the squad is stretched.

You missed the key signing of them all, Pirlo the free transfer from Milan has been awesome this season.

[Zeppo]

and in Vucinic they got one of the best forwards in the world.

Too temperamental and inconsistent though.

The team played fantastically well in every area this season except the attack. If they had a forward like Milito or Cavani they would have had the league title wrapped up in March.

Top priority for them this summer has to be the signing of a big-time goalscorer. If they land one then they could go far in the Champions League.

[Me]

You missed the key signing of them all, Pirlo the free transfer from Milan has been awesome this season.

Yes. Meant to put him in the post about the combination of Vidal and Marchisio enabling him to play in his most effective role.

The problem, is will Italy play in a manner that gets the best from him. Especially since the team needs to make accommodations
for Sebastein Giovinco who might have right to claim being the best performer in Serie A this year.

[Zeppo]

Yes. Meant to put him in the post about the combination of Vidal and Marchisio enabling him to play in his most effective role.

The problem, is will Italy play in a manner that gets the best from him.

Don't be surprised to see Italy copy Juve's system - at least in the midfield - in order to try and get the best out of Pirlo.

In that case expect to see De Rossi in the Vidal role.

[Me]

That is my concern. I don't think De Rossi will be effective.

[Zeppo]

That is my concern. I don't think De Rossi will be effective.

It depends. If Italy play enough friendlies with that formation then there's a good chance they could gel before the tournament starts.

But obviously at club level the players have many more games together, along with daily training.That's an advantage that Prandelli doesn't have.

Still, I think De Rossi is an excellent player. He used to be more of a liability because of his temper, but he seems to have grown out of that for the most part.

[Dunny]

Yes. Meant to put him in the post about the combination of Vidal and Marchisio enabling him to play in his most effective role.

The problem, is will Italy play in a manner that gets the best from him. Especially since the team needs to make accommodations
for Sebastein Giovinco who might have right to claim being the best performer in Serie A this year.

Andrea Pirlo's peerless pass-mastery could lift even the Trentside fog

Juventus's pageant with Notts County and the title–winning form of their regista epitomise a fine moment for the Old Lady

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• • Richard Williams
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 May 2012 23.33 BST
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Andrea Pirlo has shown up Milan's lack of appreciation of his talents by steering Juventus to the Serie A title. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

The first time I saw Andrea Pirlo was on a cold and fog-shrouded November evening in Monza in 2000, when he was a member of the Italy Under-21 team sent out to confront Howard Wilkinson's England selection. Only 11 minutes had been played when the referee abandoned the match but since that night Pirlo's quality has illuminated every ground on which he has played, and none more so than Juventus's new stadium, where he and his team-mates celebrated the Serie A championship on Sunday.
A byword for graceful creativity, Pirlo has been the most influential midfield player in Europe this season, bar none. Last summer he left Milan, his home for 10 glittering years in which, mostly under Carlo Ancelotti, he won two European Cups, two Uefa Super Cups, one Fifa Club World Cup and two Italian league titles, and where he had intended to finish his career. But Massimiliano Allegri, Ancelotti's latest successor, wanted to install a different sort of influence in the position Pirlo had made his own, at the base of midfield: someone more physical, more aggressive, such as Mark van Bommel or Massimo Ambrosini.
A one-year extension was the best Milan could offer when Pirlo's contract expired. The player reckoned that, at 32, three more years would be about right. Milan declined his suggestion and probably no greater misjudgment has been made since Real Madrid sold Claude Makélélé to make room for David Beckham. Once it became known that Pirlo was on the market, Juventus snapped him up. Their new coach, Antonio Conte, himself a former international midfield player of great distinction, saw Pirlo as the foundation of the side he was building to go with the club's new home.
Last September the stadium was inaugurated with a stylish gala. Following the speeches and the presentation of great figures associated with the club's history, from Giampiero Boniperti to Edgar Davids, a game took place between Conte's new team and Notts County, the current representatives of the club who, back in 1903, sent Juventus a set of the black and white striped shirts in which they have played ever since.
When you think of all the famous clubs who would have happily accepted such an invitation, the Barcelonas and Manchester Uniteds and Bayern Munichs, this was a gesture of great historical sensitivity on the part of Andrea Agnelli, Juve's 36-year-old president, the fourth member of his family to hold the post. It came in response to a tentative call from Jim Rodwell, Notts's chief executive, wanting to ask Juventus to help mark this year's 150th anniversary of the world's oldest professional football club. Certainly, Agnelli responded, but why don't you join our celebrations first?
And so it came to pass that the players and officials of a club in the third tier of the English game found themselves on a private jet and in a five-star hotel, all at the expense of hosts for whom their ancestors had done a small favour more than a century earlier. For that, as much as for anything else, I reckon Juventus fully deserve their success in recapturing the Serie A title, the reward for a deed of outstanding dignity and generosity.
Others will conclude that Juve's success in remaining unbeaten throughout the entire league season was more to do with the quality of Pirlo's passing. As he did for year after year in Milan's colours, the newcomer made himself constantly available to his team-mates, always there to receive the ball and move it on in the most relevant direction. He was compass and metronome rolled into one, and he did not get injured or suspended.
As the very promising Conte showed the extent of his tactical imagination by shuffling his team's formation from an initial 4-2-4 to 4-1-4-1, then to 4-2-3-1, and finally to an alternation between 4-3-3 and 3-5-2, Pirlo remained the keystone, utterly reliable and seemingly ageless. Only the colour of the stripes had changed.
Pirlo began his career as a classic No10, an attacking midfielder in the mould of Gianni Rivera or the young Roberto Baggio. The role did not quite suit him and it was while he was on loan from Internazionale, his first big club, back to Brescia, where he had started out, that the veteran coach Carlo Mazzone identified a new, deeper position from which he could direct the play. He became what Italians call a regista. Not having a word for it, we borrow a term from American football: the quarterback. Xabi Alonso and Paul Scholes are pretty good exponents but no one in recent times has come close to Pirlo's calm mastery and next month he will be a key figure in Cesare Prandelli's Italy at the Euro 2012 finals.
And so on Wednesday, four days before their team conclude a highly successful season with an appearance in the Coppa Italia final against Napoli, Agnelli and his fellow directors will open their new club museum, located in the Juventus Stadium (which really deserves a more resonant name). Among their guests will be Ray Trew, Notts County's owner, who rescued the club from their latest flirtation with oblivion two years ago, and Jim Rodwell. With their own anniversary functions already under way, the pair will be hoping to bring back news of a return fixture with the new champions of Italy before the start of next season. Imagine it: Andrea Pirlo at Meadow Lane. Just as long as the Trentside fog holds off …