In the golden calcio age of the 1990s, there is one season that stands out as the most iconic and controversial. The 1997/98 campaign saw Marcello Lippi’s Juventus beat Gigi Simoni’s Inter at the end of a thrilling head-to-head battle to claim their 25th Scudetto, the second in a row.
They did so in a debatable fashion, to say the least, as they got the decisive push by toppling the Nerazzurri 1-0 at the Stadio delle Alpi in a game marred by defender Mark Iuliano’s body check on the Fenomeno Ronaldo Luis Nazario da Lima. It looked like a crystal-clear penalty, but referee Piero Ceccarini had a different opinion. Some 26 years later, the Inter fans are still not over it, and perhaps rightly so.
It was such a big controversy that it overshadowed what happened just one week earlier, when Juventus had gotten an ever bigger helping hand as another referee, Pasquale Rodomonti from Teramo, failed to notice that Empoli’s Stefano Bianconi’s header had landed way past the goal line before Juve’s goalie Angelo Peruzzi would push it back.
Thanks to that decisive mistake, Juventus won the game 1-0 and managed to maintain a one-point lead over Inter ahead of the final confrontation scheduled the following weekend. The rest is history, as they say. But, in hindsight, that win at Empoli possibly had an even bigger impact on the title race than the notorious Juve vs. Inter clash.
Because if the collision between Iuliano and Ronaldo could somehow be open to different interpretations (and, more than 20 years later, Mr. Ceccarini still believes he made the right call on that day…), Bianconi’s header could not. TV footage taken from any possible angle clearly showed that the ball from the Empoli midfielder’s header was some 20 centimeters past the goal line when Peruzzi grabbed it. But, when video replays were shown after the game, the damage was done.
It was a major disappointment for a brave Empoli side, who had just been promoted to Serie A after a nine-year hiatus, under the guidance of a balding young coach named Luciano Spalletti. That would be the first top-flight campaign for the current Nazionale coach.
When they welcomed Juve at the Castellani Stadium on April 19, 1998, Empoli were embroiled in the relegation battle, as expected, and in desperate need of points. The Bianconeri, on the other hand, sat top of the table with Inter trailing by one.
Despite a star-studded squad, though, Marcello Lippi’s boys were put on the ropes. In what looked like an anything but memorable match, Empoli’s Carmine Esposito squandered a pair of glorious chances that could have made the Old Lady’s path toward the Scudetto much more arduous. Juve’s only shooting attempt was a deadly Zinedine Zidane free kick from a narrow angle which the Azzurri shot-stopper Marco Roccati pushed off the crossbar.
But since games and trophies are often won thanks to single episodes (and not only the controversial ones…), Juventus found the back of the net with a long-range set piece taken by Alessio Tacchinardi from his defensive third, and turned by 19-year-old Marcelo Zalayeta into an assist for Fabio Pecchia’s winner.
There were still 20 minutes to go, and the best was yet to come. Just a few minutes later, Giorgio Lucenti pinned a fine cross to Bianconi at the far post. Bianconi’s header was powerful and well directed, but Angelo Peruzzi sprung backwards and somehow managed to clear the ball away from goal.
He was the best Italian goalkeeper of his days, boasting an insane agility despite his sturdy build, and that was a great save. Only that it was not. The ball had crossed the goal line, as the TV verdict would show later. But referee Rodomonti was very close to the action. Surely, he must have seen it, right?
“I saw it myself! I saw everything myself”, Rodomonti shouted as he frantically waved his hands to keep players from both sides away, those from Empoli claiming that it was a goal and those from Juve obviously denying that. He had no doubts. The goal was valid.
Little it mattered that, before full time, Esposito had yet another chance – perhaps his best one – to equalize and make the matter less relevant. As what looked like yet another example of the Italian referees’ supposed favoritism to the Old Lady took form, people couldn’t just wait for the game to end and for the battle to be taken off the pitch and to the Italians’ favorite arena: The press rooms.
As a Juve employee, it was relatively easy to address such criticism back in the days: “I don’t talk about referee decisions” was Marcello Lippi’s only comment.
Peruzzi himself confirmed that “The club doesn’t allow us to talk about referee decisions.” But, Angelo, was it a goal or not? “I just dove and looked at the ball, not at the white line. All I can say is that the referee was very close. He was in an ideal position to determine whether it was a goal or not.”
End of the discussion, at least until the following week, when the Iuliano-Ronaldo collision would cast an even larger shadow over the soon-to-be-new Juventus Scudetto.
Now, let’s fast-forward by 17 years or so. Time eases all things they say, or maybe things just take a different perspective after such a long time. When he was interviewed by the Gazzetta dello Sport TV in 2015, Peruzzi’s recollection of the infamous Bianconi header had somewhat changed:
“In reality, that was a goal, but I didn’t realize it in that moment. I asked some Red Cross guys who were standing behind my goal, and they told me that the ball was in by at least 20 centimeters. I wanted to go and tell everything after the game, but they didn’t send me to the press conference, and so nothing happened.”
We can only imagine Peruzzi going to Luciano Moggi, the then almighty, shady executive of Juventus, and say “Boss, I want to go and tell the truth”, then Moggi answering something like “Well, Angelo, that’s very honorable of you, but I guess we’ll send somebody else to the press conference.”
The last words on the matter were those uttered by the unforgettable Avvocato Gianni Agnelli, the president of Juventus for a lifetime, who was famous for his caustic, sarcastic humor that made him absolutely loved by the Juve aficionados and hated by pretty much the rest of Italy.
“The Avvocato called me after that game,” Peruzzi recalled in the same interview. “He told me that that save from Bianconi’s shot was probably the best I had made since I joined Juventus.”
MATCH SCORECARD
April 19, 1998 – Serie A 1997/98 Round 30
EMPOLI – JUVENTUS 0-1
SCORER: 70′ Pecchia
 |
EMPOLI (3-1-4-2): Roccati; Fusco, Baldini (79′ Bettella), Bianconi; Ficini; Ametrano (75′ Tonetto), Pane, Bonomi, Lucenti; Florijancic (75′ Cappellini), Esposito (Mazzi, Bonfanti, Pecorari, Bisoli) Coach: Spalletti |
 |
JUVENTUS (3-4-1-2): Peruzzi; Birindelli, Tacchinardi, Iuliano; Di Livio, Deschamps (61′ Pecchia), Davids, Pessotto; Zidane (61′ Conte); Del Piero, Amoruso (69′ Zalayeta) (Rampulla, Dimas, Torricelli, Fonseca) Coach: Lippi |
REFEREE: Mr. Rodomonti from Teramo
NOTES: Yellow Cards: Baldini, Ametrano (E), Iuliano (J); Red Card: Tacchinardi (J)