Juve, Platini: “Tether? The club is Agnelli, no one touches it as long as I’m alive”

Le Roi plays and plays across the board: a constant throughout his life, professionally and beyond. Michel Platini is in Turin or, rather, where the twenty-first edition of the Vialli Foundation and Mauro Golf Cup is being staged, the event in which sport, friendship and solidarity intertwine to translate into concrete support for research into ALS. On the horizon of the French 10 there is the World Cup, the new football and a lot of Juventus. “As long as I’m alive, no one will touch it… the club is the Agnelli family. My return? I was clear some time ago, I don’t think about it, I don’t aspire to it, at seventy I still have plans to grow my world, but no more institutional roles and something similar in a club…”, says Michel. However, he thinks about the black and white planet and it couldn’t be otherwise. “I think of the affection of the fans that is always alive, of the group we were, of the Avvocato and I think that if we had beaten Fiorentina we would now be here talking about an overall positive season. Football is made up of cycles, a new Juventus story will soon begin…”, says Platini.

platini applauds the expanded world championship

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Le Roi has just denounced FIFA president Gianni Infantino for defamation and influence peddling (“Sorry, but I won’t talk about it”), but he doesn’t raise the red card on the new format of the World Cup. “It’s right to expand it, it’s right to give a chance to new realities: I don’t know if the 48 teams are too few or too many, I know that something had to be done in favor of nations like the African ones and, then, I find the moment of the anthems with the teams lined up in that way very suggestive… Who will win? On paper, my France is the strongest, but I would bet one euro on Portugal…”, he underlines. Returning to the changing ball, the comparisons of the past enter the scene: is the spread between him and the great Diego too much? “Maradona was more of a character and, then, he played two sports, football and basketball (he smiles, ed). If you want an answer as to why Diego was put on another planet than me, I can tell you that he has always been perceived as a Che Guevara: he had a particular life, but, despite everything, he was a very good boy. We are talking about a phenomenon…”, so Platini. “His” Juventus finds itself clinging to difficult market choices, where they will have to have space for ideas and creativity. “Would I give more time to someone like David? I can say that for someone who does what I did, the midfielder, the insertion can be less complicated: in the middle you touch a thousand balls, in attack it depends on the team. My entry? That group was fond of Liam Brady, but, at the same time, they never made me think about coming in his place…”. Will he return to Juve? No. Will he return to football? Yes, but in a different way.