Mark Iuliano doesn’t forget May 5 and the clash with Ronaldo

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Mark Iuliano was the star of the new episode of Stories of Serie A: “Despite my old age, I feel very good because I am lucky enough to be able to train constantly. My best friends are almost all former colleagues so we help each other out. Then padel ruined everyone. Mentally it makes us feel very young, maybe too much so. I spend my time between physical therapy and injuries. I get injured more now than when I played professionally, but it”s a good time in my life.

“I was born a Juventus fan and having played so many years at my favorite school was a gift, a dream and unique emotions for me. Every day I spent on that team I always cheered for those teammates with whom I later played. Now I am even more of a fan, I have become passionate and unfortunately at this time I have also suffered a little bit. I am suffering, however, I am also glad to see a very dear friend of mine coaching it now and I am cheering for him”.

“I arrived in the European Champion Juve. We made three consecutive finals and I lost two right away (laughs, ed.). However, we won two championships, Lippi was considered the best coach in the world and everyone envied us. At one point we came to a season where maybe we had had our time, Lippi was exonerated, we lost 4-0 to Parma in the 98-99 season and Carlo Ancelotti came in. An immense coach and our biggest regret is not being able to give a Scudetto to an extraordinary person. We lost the 2003 Champions League final and two championships, one against Perugia, in the downpour with referee Collina, and the next year with Roma and the 2-2 draw. However, Marcello Lippi then came back and we started winning again”.

“My path in my ten years at Juve has been an extraordinary one, both in victories and defeats. The daily routine of training, of having a great locker room with people you love, they allow you to win and convince the club. I won five championships, one they took away from me, we know why”.

“May 5, 2002 was the most beautiful victory, but also the most unexpected. Inter had practically won the Scudetto and instead then we won it by going our own way. My first goal with Juve was the Scudetto goal and it was magical. However, the bad luck was that the week after we won 3 out of 5 scudettos, it coincided with the Champions League final so we couldn’t enjoy anything because then we lost them. I have to be honest, with teams even inferior to us however in a dry game you can never tell. I won a lot and I lost a lot. I didn̶t win a Champions that maybe we would have deserved however it remains a fantastic decade. I have only wonderful memories”.

Inevitable question about the clash with Ronaldo: “Maybe it penalized me a little bit in the immediate because in the 98 World Cup I was on the call-up list and disappeared because this mess happened. But to reduce a career and everything you’ve won and everything you’ve fought for to a single episode you’re sorry on one hand, although it makes me laugh because I live in Milan and almost every day I’m asked about it. He and I never even talked about it, we played so many times against each other, we suffered when he had very serious injuries, when we were on the field and he couldn’t express himself the way he wanted to. Even at the end of his career when we played in Spain, we never talked about it. I laugh about it and we still talk about it”.

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