A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals
Season 5 – 2001/02
Last season ended trophy-less for Juve and Dario, despite a strong individual display by the little Bisonte, scoring 31 goals. After four seasons he is five goals away from becoming a centurion.
Clearly, Dario was busy during the summer months as he still has some grappa and cigarettes left by mid-August. With this in mind, he decides to take another month off, to work through the back log.
Papa Bison, who is still overseeing this whole time travelling affair, uses his position on the Juve board to bring in some more recruits. Apart from Karanka they are mostly squad players and youngsters.
As the little Tatanka watches from the stands, casually smoking away, Juve make light work of AGF to claim a place in the Champions League group stages. Unfortunately, the opening league game against Parma doesn’t go to plan, Buffon is in fine form and Giovane Elber scores two as Juve lose 1-2.
Despite his month off, Dario only missed three games. He comes on as a substitute against Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia 2nd round and gets his first goal of the season.
He follows up the goal against Fiorentina with a double against Roma. It’s probably also worth mentioning, the two Dario’s renegotiated the little Bison’s contact over the summer months. Not so much for increased wages, but more for a better (and easier to record/remember) cigarette and alcohol bonus.
- For a team win: five cigarettes and three shots of grappa
- Scoring a goal: one cigarette and one shot per goal Is this easier than before ??
- Multiple goal bonus: three extra cigarettes and two extra shots Probably not,
- Hat-trick bonus: a pack of twenty cigarettes and a bottle of grappa I’ll make a
- Trophy bonus: to be decided if needed. spreadsheet.
After an international break, where Dazza scores two goals for Italy against Finland he is back in the Stadio Delle Alpi scoring two more, this time against Roma. The performance earns him 10 cigarettes and 7 shots.
The first game of the Champions League is away to AIK, it is an uneventful but pleasing 1-0 win for Juve. The Bisonte was obviously saving himself for a MOM performance against the club he supported as a boy. A stunning hat-trick earns him a plethora of goodies, something along the lines of 21 ciggies and 8 shots and a bottle of grappa. Who knew scoring goals was such an unhealthy profession.
After the strong showing against Inter, Juve go on a three game winning run with Tatanka scoring a goal in each of them.
The winning streak comes to an end against Napoli in a boring 0-0 draw. However it is only a small blip as Juve win the next six games on the bounce, four in the league, one in the Champions league against Ajax and the other against Lazio in the Coppa Italia. Dazza scores in five of those six games, including another hat-trick this time in the game against Ajax. The Bisonte is in a rich vein of form, despite the copious amount of smoking and drinking he must be doing.
Juve have a mini blip in the next two matches, a 1-1 draw against AIK and a 0-1 loss to Milan. This prompts Pappa Bison to hit the transfer market again looking for the most illusive of illusive signings, proper good fullbacks. He settles on two fine Italian players spending just shy of £7.5 million.
The signings help steady the ship and lead to a three game unbeaten run, however the Bison doesn’t get on the score sheet during this time. He instead prefers to put four past Bielorussia is the first leg of the World Cup Qualifying playoff. Those four goals are followed by what looks to be the winner in the first leg of the Coppa Italia Quarter final before Milan come back with a well earned draw and two away goals.
There are two 1-1 draws before Dario scores again, it’s another goal against Milan, seeing Juve progress to the Semi final of the Coppa Italia.
Dazza’s scoring has become sporadic of late and director of football Dario Snr decides some more creative firepower is needed up top. He bags a bargain in out of favour Raul.
Juve win the next two games, but Hubs is absent from the score sheet. Against Sampdoria it looks like he has squandered a fine opportunity, missing a penalty, however he pops up in the 90th minute to rescue a point.
After little Bisonte’s inconsistent start to January he comes alive towards the end of the month and keeps on firing till the end of February. He scores in eight consecutive games, all of which Juve win, including the two games against Padova in the Coppa Italia that take Juve through to the final. Hopefully this final won’t go as disastrously as the 1999/00 final against Torino, where Juve lost 4-6 on aggregate despite leading 4-0 after the first leg. It still hurts!
After goals in eight consecutive games Tatanka slows down a little, but Juve do not. They beat Cagliari in the league and Bayern 3-0 at home in the Champions League Quarter final first leg. Dazza then pops up with a vital goal in a 1-0 win over Ravenna.
He adds another in the 3-1 win over Perugia before helping secure Juve’s place in the Champions League Semi finals with the winning goal in a 2-1 victory at the Olympiastadion.
The victory against Perugia is Juve’s 22nd in 27 league games, moving them 22 points clear of Sampdoria with seven left to play. An unassailable lead and a second Serie A title for the little Bison.
Winning the league doesn’t slow Juve down, although Dario takes a little break, metaphorically against Lazio and then literally against Milan. A torn hamstring for the Bison and three months on the sidelines means his season is over. Will Juve be able to win the Coppa Italia and progress in the Champions League without him? Will he be ready for the World Cup?
The first leg of the Champions League Semi final is at Old Trafford. Man Utd have swapped Schmeichel for Neil Alexander but the result is familiar, a 0-1 loss.
In between the first and second leg of the Champions League is the first leg of the Coppa Italia final, Bologna are the opponents and Juve take a slim lead into leg two.
Man Utd make the smart decision of dropping Shearer for Guivarch in the second leg, who would have thought such a change would backfire. Man Utd score an own goal and forgotten (until now) man Fowler gets a second, Juve have turned in around to reach the final. Bisons Snr and Jnr can’t believe it as they watch from the stands sipping a grappa.
Coppa Italia Final leg two, the Dario’s take to the stands in Bologna fearing the worst, they’ve been in this position before and it didn’t turn out too well. Fortunately, Landreau is inspired in goal and Delli P and Denilson score the goals. Hubs is an Italian Cup winner.
The Champions League Final. Little Bison can only watch from the stands as Juve face Monaco. Despite going a goal behind early on things look up when Djetou is sent off for a sinical last man challenge. Maldini thought he had won it in the 80th minute only for Trezeguet to equalise a minute later. Then in extra time Monaco found something special, as Dugarry and Litmanen took the game out of reach.
Another defeat in the final for Juve and the Bison and a disappointing end to a great season. Would the Dazza have made a difference? He had scored 31 goals before missing the final 10 games.
To add to Dario’s misery, despite recovering in time for the World Cup, he was still injured when Louis Van Gaal selected his squad so he missed out on a place at the World Cup and Italy only managed to make the second round.
A final summary of the year’s stats show how bad the rest of Serie A were.
The team stats show Dazza was on for a stand out season and just how good Del Piero is.
The final table of Dario’s achievements after five seasons.
