| Billy Davies certainly hasn’t been idol since he left Derby County at the end of November. As well as coaching Glasgow youngsters as part of a police initiative, Davies has travelled to both Europe and the USA to observe different managers and their coaching methods. Davies shares diary excerpts of the trip that he and coaches Julian Darby and Pete Williams took to meet Juventus manager Claudio Ranieri.
Friday 26th March 08....
“Travelled to Vinovo to the Juventus training ground. There is very high security at the entrance and you need documentation to get in. We were escorted by two security guards to a viewing area and watched Juventus train at 1100. Training was very leisurely and lasted for about an hour on what was a beautiful day and perfect training conditions.
“After that we a chat with the first team squad and then a 30 minute meeting with manager Claudio Ranieri. When he first came to meet us our Juventus guide said to him in Italian ‘this is Billy Davies who was manager of Derby County’ and the first thing he did was point to the sky and said ‘not your fault!’ and he laughed and I laughed.
“We then basically spoke about the nature of the game in Italy and England. We spoke about his time at Chelsea and went through things about how he found the game: the referees, the press, the directors, how he managed the club and how he signed players. Basically for 30 minutes we had a question and answer situation. He didn’t condemn anything about the game in either country; he just talked about how he managed basically and how he had the same philosophy (in both countries).
“What I found intriguing about Claudio was that he walked into morning training at about 0845 and there he was at 1245 fully dressed and heading home to have lunch back at his house. I was explaining to him how it was so different for me at a club like Derby and how I never left the club until 5pm or 6pm at night. He said ‘I am only interested in the football, what’s going on in the football and the shape of the team and everything else is left to the infrastructure of other people in the club.’ That’s amazing to me because in theory it sounds great. It is very difficult to implement in England because the one thing you could obviously see over there was that there was a great understanding from top to bottom as to how the infrastructure works. I don’t think anyone stepped outside their box at any given time. They clearly know how the structure works and the manager is the manager.
“We then headed into the Juventus main offices in Turin’s city centre where we met with their Sporting Director Alessio Secco. It was an interesting 45 meeting during which we talked about the club, it’s structure, how they go about signing players and scouting; many different aspects of the Juventus philosophy if you like.”
Saturday 27th March 08....
“We travelled backed to the Juventus training ground where again training took place in very warm and dry conditions. After that we chatted long and hard with players including Del Piero, Pavel Nedved and David Trezeguet about that morning’s session which was ahead of the Parma match the following day. The thing that Claudio Ranieri had worked on that morning was a lot of switch of play because of how narrow Parma play.
“The weather was excellent and it was a nice environment to train in. The one thing that you could see in the training session was that they had the utmost confidence in each other and their touch and technique was excellent. The training was nowhere near as intense (as in British football) and the pace of the training and the way they tackle and close the ball down is different. There is blood and thunder in British training sessions and tackles flying everywhere and a real high pace and high pressing but this was very relaxed with lots of passes and touches. So no real tempo or aggression to it but technically the way they move the ball around and their touch was of the highest order for sure.
“We then went back to our hotel in the centre of Turin and believe it or not did a road run through the streets of Turin which was chaos. Afterwards we headed out to an Italian restaurant for a pizza...which was lovely!”
Sunday 30th March 08....
“We arrived at the Stadio Olympico at 1330 and entered the stadium to view the warm up and take pictures ahead of the Juventus v Parma match. We sat watching the stadium fill up and when it got to 2.30pm I said to my colleagues Julian Darby and Pete Williams ‘I am very, very concerned because something doesn’t seem right.’ Then at 2.40pm, with no players coming out for a warm up there was an announcement over the tannoy which was in Italian so we couldn’t understand it. There was an eruption amongst the fans in the stadium and everybody was cursing, shouting and bawling and throwing their arms up in the air and there was a strange, strange atmosphere in the stadium. We asked a press guy what was going on and he told us that a Parma fan had just been killed two kilometres from the stadium outside at a service station during a running battle between three Parma buses and two Juventus buses. Due to the death of the Parma fan the game was cancelled and so were all the training sessions the following day.
"Although the game was cancelled it was a still a very worthwhile trip to learn about Juventus training and their approach to the game.”
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