Luciano Moggi has shared insights into signing Giorgio Chiellini for Juventus after the defender’s retirement from professional football.
Chiellini, who spent the majority of his career with Juventus, departed from the club last year after an impressive two-decade tenure. Known as one of Juventus’s most dedicated players, Chiellini has consistently shown loyalty to the club since joining.
While Chiellini is widely recognised as a defender, Moggi revealed that he initially played as an attacker before transitioning into a centre-back. Moggi expressed that Chiellini, even in his earlier days, displayed the traits of a serious and immensely talented player. As the Euro 2020 winner’s career progressed, he lived up to those expectations before ultimately concluding his playing career.
He said, as quoted by Tuttomercatoweb:
“Chiellini was an interesting boy. He was from Livorno and co-owned Roma. I was quite lucky. The details that brought Giorgio to Juventus are quite ugly, however. Roma, at that moment, had the transfer market blocked. Therefore Spinelli came to me and said “give me your share of Chiellini”. He, however, refused and went to the League, where they told him that they could not negotiate for the sale of the Livorno part. So, he decided to take the entire Roma side and I took the Livorno side.
“I paid between 750,000 and 800,000 euros for it. He was a kid worth betting on. he was a very fast winger, but we noticed that he could also be a central defender. He had a particular talent, which few had. He knew how to correct the position of his teammates if they were badly positioned. Plus, he had charisma. He is the one of the captains. This transition happened over time and I must say that it became what I thought.”
Juve FC Says
Chiellini was an outstanding professional when he was on our books and rarely gave any reason to doubt his professionalism.
The former defender will keep displaying good professionalism if he returns to the club in a non-playing capacity, which is almost a certainty now.
