Same enclave, but different scenery. La Real will return to Turin to play the first leg of the round of 32 of the Europa League, although he will not do so at Delle Alpi in which he fell to Juve in the Champions 2003/2004, but to the Juventus Stadium that the Turin team built in the same place just ten years ago.
In that league with which the team of Raynald Denoueix returned to the highest continental competition, the Real faced their own Juventus, al Olympiacos and to Galatasaray. Able to outperform the latter two, the realistic team fell in Turin 4-2 in a clash that is remembered for the start of Lee Chun Soo and the free-kick that De Pedro scored against an opponent plagued by big names such as Buffon, Thuram, Zambrotta, Tacchinardi, Nedved and Trezeguet.
On that occasion, the Real visited Delle Alpi and 6,330 days later, the bus will take the royalists from the concentration hotel to the same point in the Piedmontese capital, although there will be a new stadium, owned by the Bianconero team for 99 years under of the agreement reached with the local City Council.
The Juventus StadiumCommercially known as Allianz Stadium, it was inaugurated just ten years ago in the same place where the Delle Alpi stadium stood, which despite being built for the 1990 World Cup, the large capacity it had (about 70,000 spectators) and the high costs maintenance led Juventus to promote a smaller facility without athletics tracks, which opened in September 2011. With capacity for 41.000 aficionados, hosted the final of the Europa League in 2014 between Sevilla and Benfica, who won the team coached by Unai Emery.
The agreement announced this Monday, subject to the green light of the Italian Government in office, is possible by itself Juventus calendar. The team coached by Andrea Pirlo travels to Naples the weekend before Real’s match in Turin, while that week they play in the Champions League in Porto and in the League they host Crotone in their stadium on Monday, February 22, so there is enough days to organize a Europa League match in a setting more than used to demands of continental logistics.