Patient Rugani Making Late Push for Euro 2016 Call-up
Daniele Rugani appreciates the value of patience more than most. His father Ubaldo, a former goalkeeper who played for Atletico Lucca back in the `70s, now fishes competitively. Countless hours have been spent sat on the riverbank or by the lake waiting for a bite. If there is a better metaphor for Rugani’s time at Juventus, I’m yet to find it.
He has been on the Old Lady’s books now for close to four years. Rugani has represented Italy at every age group from Under-17 onwards and Juventus got their hands on him when he was still in Empoli’s academy. A big Juve fan, Rugani was celebrating their first Scudetto since Calciopoli in one of Lucca’s piazzas when one of his friends and teammates Diego Frugoli approached and said: “You know you’re going to Juventus, right?” “Excuse me, what?” Rugani replied. He couldn’t believe it. Empoli hadn’t informed him yet, but sure enough a couple of days later Rugani was moving to Turin and bumping into Arturo Vidal in his hotel.
His long apprenticeship had begun. Rugani was a member of the Juventus team that won the Coppa Italia at youth level. He then returned to Empoli for a couple of years. “It was the best thing for my career,” Rugani admitted to Guerin Sportivo. “I got lucky because I came across a coach who believes in young players and knows how to make you improve.”
That coach was Maurizio Sarri. He made Rugani a first team regular in Serie B while still a teenager and that didn’t change once they were promoted last season either. The football Empoli played was some of the easiest on the eye in Serie A and they survived with four games to spare. Their defence moved with a coordination that had Sky Italia pundit Billy Costacurta gushing with praise. Rugani played every minute of every game. Even in the midst of a relegation battle and being confronted with strikers of the calibre of Gonzalo Higuain, Mauro Icardi and Paulo Dybala, he wasn’t booked once.
It was then that the comparisons with Gaetano Scirea began. Scirea went eight consecutive seasons at Juventus without picking up a yellow card and by the end of his career, the men in black had shown him only nine in all competitions. Understandably, Sarri wished to continue mentoring Rugani. He wanted to take his pupil to Napoli with him. Offers of €25m were made to Juventus. All were turned down. Rugani, as Juventus’ coach Max Allegri would say time and again over the course of this season, is the future of his club and country’s defence for the next decade and beyond.
The reason Allegri had to repeat himself was because until mid-December the only game-time Rugani got was 120 seconds at the end of Juventus’ 2-0 win against Sevilla in the Champions League. There were rumblings of discontent, not from the player but his agent, Davide Torchia, who started to make a noise, particularly after Martin Caceres covered for the injured Andrea Barzagli against Hellas when Serie A resumed following the winter break. “The decision left me a little perplexed given how well Daniele played [in the 4-0 win against Torino] in the cup. I hope the club keeps its word after saying he is the first-in-line after the starting back three.”
Napoli knocked on the door again and Arsenal also let Juventus know that they were interested. Both were rebuffed. It was around this time, Tuttosport claim, that Rugani was called into the manager’s office at Vinovo and told not to read the papers or listen to the radio. His time would come. All he should be concentrating on in the meantime was training.
Rugani had a number of adjustments to make upon joining Juventus. One of them he shared with the other new recruits: a mentality shift. “The pressure is different,” Rugani explains. “The objectives are totally different. There is less time to grow. Here you must always play to win.” Unlike the attack, which had lost Carlos Tevez and the midfield, which had bid farewell to Vidal and Andrea Pirlo, the defence remained unchanged. It was harder to emerge in this position at Juventus than in others.
“Daniele arrived from Empoli,,” Allegri reminded everyone, “and found four of the best defenders in Europe in front of him.” Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini and Caceres. Juventus’ worst start since 1912 also demanded that they batten down the hatches and steady the ship. The back four was abandoned in favour of what they were most comfortable with and knew best: the three-man defence, a system Rugani had never played before and would need time to learn. No unit in the world executes this defensive formation better than the BBC and breaking into it at a delicate time, as Juventus attempted a comeback for the ages, was complicated to say the least.
Rugani had to remember that, in many respects, he was already ahead of schedule. At his age Barzagli was at second division Ascoli, Bonucci was on loan at Treviso and Chiellini found himself at newly promoted Fiorentina. By the time spring came around, things had started to stabilise for Juve and Rugani got lucky with other players’ misfortune. Caceres snapped his Achilles’ tendon and Chiellini’s body began to give in. Since then he has started and finished eight of Juventus’ last 10 games in all competitions and - with the exception of the 3-0 defeat to Inter in the Coppa Italia semi-final second leg - hasn’t put a foot wrong.
Rugani’s yellow card against Fiorentina the weekend before last was his first in 53 top-flight appearances. He followed it up with another against Carpi on Sunday. Curiously, Rugani’s unblemished disciplinary record had become a stick to beat him with, particularly after the Inter game. He was accused of being soft. The good schoolboy. His mother incidentally is a teacher. “Maybe I should be more instinctive,” Rugani told Sportsweek. Instead, he thinks before he acts. Every intervention is the product of rational decision-making.
Allegri and Chiellini have tried to bring out a nasty side. In recent interviews Rugani has been keen to impress how, other than the “model professional” Pirlo makes him out to be, he was a bit of a rascal at school. He once kicked a fellow pupil for running to the teachers and telling tales on his classmates. “Allegri has asked me to be more aggressive,” Rugani revealed to La Stampa, “and I think Giorgio is happy with how things are going, especially after my second booking.”
As with Alvaro Morata last season and Paulo Dybala earlier this term, Allegri deserves immense credit for easing Rugani into things at Juventus. There are now calls for him to be included in the Italy squad for the Euros. The other names in contention behind the BBC with the exception of Sassuolo’s Francesco Acerbi are not ending the season in as fine form as Rugani. If Antonio Conte were to pick Sampdoria’s Andrea Ranocchia at his expense, or even Fiorentina’s waning Davide Astori, it would raise eyebrows. Again Rugani might have to be patient. It would be a shame if the only tackle he makes this summer is on the riverbank helping Papa Ubaldo fish.
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