Pirlo: Agnelli has spoken with Juventus players about Super League

The furor continues to rage around the Super League, with Juventus caught up right in the middle of the storm. Club president Andrea Agnelli has been one of the chief proponents of the concept for years now, and is one of the prominent faces of this breakaway group of twelve clubs being dubbed the ‘Drity Dozen’ as one of the vice-chairmen of the group.

The race for the Scudetto continues meanwhile behind the scenes, with a round of midweek games and coach Andrea Pirlo spoke to the media today during his pre-match press conference. Unsurprisingly, the first question was about the whole fiasco.

“We are focused, the present for us is the qualification for the Champions League. The President spoke to the team about this project today. We know he is the first row for this thing [the Super League], but I am not the most suitable person to talk about it. There is the President in the first row who is organizing it.

“This morning, Agnelli explained to us what the project is about, but he didn’t go into details. He told us that the most important thing is to focus on the present.

“Agnelli has always been very close to the team, I speak to him after every game, the club’s offices are just around the corner here, he’s always been close to us. The players must remain calm, it’s just a project, and football goes ahead.”

Juve are clinging on to a Champions League spot, sitting in fourth-place two points ahead of Napoli but two points behind Atalanta now after losing in Bergamo over the weekend.

“The team is feeling quite well. We are recovering from Sunday’s game. I am planning a few changes, but I am not going to rotate the team much.

“We are only focused on the game against Parma. We know we are not going through a great moment, but we must have the best possible approach.”

Pirlo provided a squad update as well, saying Cristiano Ronaldo would return against Parma, but Federico Chiesa is going to be out for some time.

“Ronaldo and Buffon will play, and I think Dybala too. He must play to recover his best condition, the Atalanta game was really tough, but I believe he put down a good performance.

“Chiesa has had a muscle problem, and we are going to assess him in the coming days. He’s been an important player for us this season, but it’s not the first time we are missing an important player, so we are going to replace him.”