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16.02.2010445 PARTICIPATIONS

Another record, but I still can’t get used to it. And I don’t believe that one day  it will become just a habit  to reach the targets like these, because for me it’s not just a celebration of what I have achieved, but also an encouragement to make everything even better.

Counting in the match against Genoa my participations came up to 445 times that I was wearing Juve shirt in Championship. I won’t forget this day, it started with the ovation that my fans and not only them dedicated to me at Olympic stadium, when Vice President Roberto Bettega awarded me with the shirt that had number 445 on it and the celebration memory plate. I was really pleased to receive the applauses before the beginning of the game, especially at the moment when our fans didn’t have a lot to celebrate considering the difficult period, without win since the 6th of January. But they overcame the disappointment. I was really happy to pay them back with my goals at the end of the match.

With this match I got the better of Gianni Boniperti on the tables of the participations in Championship, and also for  this reason it is  a very important target. Once again my career intertwined with President who introduced me to Juventus, a man who built up the history of this club on the pitch and then, in the society. I talked to him some time ago, we laughed about matches : he played his 444 in Serie A, instead, among my 445 I have 32 in SerieB…  But apart from jokes, for my career and for Juve these B matches mean a lot.
 
I’m very glad to have celebrated an occasion like this with a victory that we chased up to the last moment, the will to win was enormous, and we earned it with great determination and pride, we suffered and recovered as we’ve never done in this season yet. It was absolutely necessary. It was fantastic to score twice in front of my family, that was happy for me at the stadium section. What a day!
 
Ps. I remember that when I first put on Juventus shirt in the 1993/94 season, I played in Primavera and that year we won Viareggio competition with my team mates. It was nice to see that years later Juventus keeps on winning: Primavera of mister Bruni won the Viareggio competition, and it is  the second victory in a row for Juventus. I know well those guys, because very often they train with us at Vinovo. I’m really happy for their success and I want to say “Well done!” to them and to all the staff.

Alessandro