Juventus Next Gen

Juventus Next Gen, also known as Juve Next Gen or Juve NG, is a professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, which acts as the reserve team of club Juventus. They compete in, and play their home games at the Stadio Giuseppe Moccagatta in Alessandria.

Following the reintroduction of reserve teams in Italy, Juventus U23 was formed in 2018 and was registered to Serie C, the third level of the Italian league system. In the first years, the team reached the promotion play-off stages of Serie C, without gaining promotion. In the 2019–20 season, under coach Fabio Pecchia, Juventus U23 won the Coppa Italia Serie C after defeating Ternana in the final. The club changed its name to Juventus Next Gen in 2022. They remained the sole Italian reserve team until August 2023 when Atalanta founded Atalanta Under-23 and further clubs followed.

Due to the nature of the club as a reserve team, Juventus Next Gen needs to comply to certain regulations, such as being ineligible for promotion to Serie A and not competing in the Coppa Italia, the major national cup. The club—and in general FIGC's reserve-team project (not limited to Italy)—faced criticism, especially from fans of other Serie C teams due to their perceived lack of history and the disruption of the league's competitive balance.

History

Stadium

Juventus Next Gen does not possess their own stadium. From 2018 to 2024, it shared the Stadio Giuseppe Moccagatta with Alessandria as their home stadium.[33] Although there had been an agreement among the two parts shortly after Juventus's reserve team's foundation, Alessandria's fans protested to not share their stadium.[33] According to the agreement, Juventus Next Gen fans can sit only in the guests sector.[33] Their players train at the Juventus Training Center in Vinovo.[33]

On 27 November 2022, Juventus Next Gen played exceptionally a match against Mantova at the Juventus Stadium, the first team home ground, in which tickets were free.[34] The match was drawn 2–2, with Simone Iocolano scoring a brace for Juventus Next Gen[35] and was seen by 28,572 fans present at the stadium.[36] On 3 March 2023, the Juventus Stadium also hosted the first leg of the 2022–23 Coppa Italia Serie C final between Juventus Next Gen and Vicenza with an attendance of 21,572 spectators and with Juventus Next Gen losing 2–1.[37][38]

In the 2024–25 season, Juventus Next Gen, alongside Juventus Women (the club's women's football), have been using the Stadio La Marmora-Pozzo in Biella.[39] Nevertheless, Juventus Next Gen returned to the Moccagatta just one year later.[40] Since 2021, Juventus has evaluated the opportunity of building a new stadium for both Next Gen and Women's team.[41]

Regulations

Juventus Next Gen play in the same professional Italian football league system as their senior team rather than a separate league dedicated for youth teams; however, the reserve team cannot play in the same division or higher as their senior team nor in the Coppa Italia, making Juventus Next Gen ineligible for promotion to the Serie A.[42] Should both Juventus and Juventus Next Gen qualify in the same league, the reserve team must play in the league immediately below. Juventus must pay an annual extraordinary fee of €1.2 million to have the reserve team registered to Serie C. In addition, Juventus may not take part to Lega Pro assemblies.

Juventus Next Gen may insert a maximum of 23 players in their team sheets.[43] Only four players aged more than 23 when the season started may be inserted in the team sheets.[43] Up to a maximum of seven players who had been registered to a FIGC-affiliated club for less than seven sporting seasons may be included in the match list.[43] In order to be eligible to play for Juventus Next Gen, players must have not been registered to the 25-man list of Serie A players and must have played at most 50 Serie A matches.[43] Instead, to be eligible to play in promotion play-offs and in relegation play-outs, players must have not played over 25 first-team league matches of at least 30 minutes.[43] If a player is suspended, he is unusable in both the first and reserve teams.[43] Suspensions must be served in the team with whom he committed the infraction.[43] Until 2024–25, Juventus Next Gen could not register in the Serie D in case of relegation, and the team would have been dissolved; starting from that season, reserve teams are now eligible for registration in Serie D.[44]

Reception

Juventus's reserve team and the FIGC's second-team project itself, which was already adopted in other countries by many decades prior (Barcelona Atlètic and Real Madrid Castilla in Spain or Bayern Munich II in Germany, among other top European clubs) as there were reserve teams since the sport's early decades, faced significant criticism. On 28 July 2018, even before the team's official foundation, Sicula Leonzio president Giuseppe Leonardo criticised Juventus's choice to form their reserve team by saying: "Reserve teams are a flop, an experiment that does not lead to anywhere. Juventus B are going to be harmful and will distort the championship: they are not a newly promoted team but they are certainly going to be strong, we have seen this in women's football that the Bianconeri don't make a bad impression wherever they put their effort."[45] In August 2018, Sportitalia director Michele Criscitellio criticised the second-team project by stating: "The mission of Juve[ntus] B was to get their youngsters to play and not to take away a place from the Serie C clubs to reach the Serie B. The buying power is so different that there would be no competition. It is pointless to make investments for whoever Juventus will end up in the group."[46] Despite criticism, Juventus Next Gen was influential as the first second-team of a Serie A club, as Atalanta U23, Milan Futuro, and Inter U23 were established in the next decade.[47][48][49]

In December 2018, Pisa's fan groups criticized Juventus U23 by stating, in an official statement: "B teams are an insult to the dignity of those who consider the Lega Pro their own Serie A", further noting that Pisa should not act as a "sparring partner" for "youngsters without a stadium and history". The Pisa fan groups also boycotted the two league matches against Juventus U23 in the 2018–19 Serie C.[50] In September 2019, an Arezzo fan group flew a banner in front of their bus saying "No to B teams".[51] They too boycotted the match against them as they had done in the preceding April.[52] In November 2021, a Padova fan group called Juventus U23 a "Super League franchise" and boycotted the two league matches against them.[53] In July 2022, Lega Serie B president Mauro Balata expressed dissent towards reserve teams playing in Serie B, saying: "Our league embraces big and important cities. If another league wants to continue with this second-team project they can do so, but without affecting our rights and our history. It is not fair."[54]

Players

Coaching staff

Managerial history

Below is a list of Juventus Next Gen managers from 2018 until the present day.[58]

Season to season

Honours

• Coppa Italia Serie C[64]
• Winners (1): 2019–20
• Runners-up (1): 2022–23[65]

See also

• Italian reserve football teams
• Juventus FC Youth Sector

External links

• Juventus Next Gen at Soccerway