Where do we begin? With the bad or the harmless news? About Juventus, possibly, switching their focus to Edin Dzeko of Manchester City, orthe severe actions that might be taken against Antonio Conte, Leonardo Bonucci and Simone Pepe for the match-fixing scandal regarding matches from before all three where Juventus men.
But we’ll begin with the Manchester City striker, who has been linked to Juventus during the previous summer and even during the time he was playing for Wolfsburg. While Juventus are still very much interested in Robin van Persie and even Luis Suarez, being realistic means that they might turn their attentions towards Dzeko, who isn’t feeling too welcome at Manchester City lately.
Despite helping City win the league title and scoring one of the goals in the 3-2 win over QPR, Dzeko lost his place in the team’s lineup and some of the confidence Roberto Mancini had in him earlier during the season. Dzeko did score 14 goals in 28 matches, but was mostly productive in the first half of the campaign.
He’s not the only player Manchester City are trying to offload, according to rumors, as Roberto Mancini, unwillingly, is required to let go of a few expensive players and their wages (Dzeko cost €32 million in 2011) if City are pursue Robin van Persie. Dzeko, a different striker than Van Persie in style and uses, is the younger man (26) with a very impressive scoring ratio during his Wolfsburg days (66 goals, 111 matches).
Now to the bad. Remember this? Well, the envelopes containing names have started to leak names. Antonio Conte, the current Juventus head coach, will be trialed by the Italian FA for receiving information during his tenure as a Siena head coach about match-fixing and not passing it on to the proper authorities, which might lead to a six month ban from the football pitch. Simone Pepe is going to be facing the FA tribunal for the same reason regarding a similar incident during his days as an Udinese player.
Someone in real problem is Leonardo Bonucci, who will face consequences and accusations both from the FA and from the arm of the law for being involved in match-fixing while playing for Bari two seasons ago, which might lead to more than just a few months away from playing football.