Today in Serie A – May 14, 2000: Calori’s Goal That Cost Juventus the Scudetto | OneFootball

If the Cinque Maggio, which we somehow recounted yesterday, is Inter’s worst Serie A nightmare, the equivalent for Juventus is the infamous Diluvio di Perugia (“Downpour in Perugia”), which took place on May 14, 2000.

That was the day when the Bianconeri lost 0-1 to Perugia in the last matchday of the 1999/2000 campaign and saw Lazio pass them in the last lap to win their second Scudetto.

What makes Juventus’ heartbreak even harder to bear is that it materialized with more than one hour of delay from the expected league conclusion. It came at the end of a match that was suspended, then restarted and that, according to Juve’s side of the story, should have rather been cancelled and postponed.

Juventus traveled to Perugia sitting first in the Serie A table with a two-point lead over Sven Goran Eriksson’s Lazio. All they needed was a tie, and a tie they got until half time, when the two sides went for the break with no goals scored.

That was when fate decided that things had to take a somewhat different turn. A sudden, violent downpour fell over the city of Perugia and, in the space a few minutes, turned the turf of the Renato Curi Stadium into a wetland.

The referee was Pierluigi Collina, the best of the best in those days, but even he was unsure about what to do. Ideally, all Serie A games should have been played and completed at the same time, especially since the Scudetto was still at stake.

But the Renato Curi was literally unplayable, the pitch being soaking wet and the ball hardly able to bounce. As the other games regularly restarted and Lazio went on to wrap a comfortable 3-0 win over Reggina, Collina waited and waited.

Only one hour after the half time break, he finally ordered the players to take the field again, the pitch condition being just barely acceptable to host a football match. But even though what ensued could hardly be called a football match, all Juventus had to do was keep the Grifoni at bay for 45 more minutes in the quagmire of the Renato Curi. After all, Perugia had already avoided relegation and had nothing left to fight for, right?

Their fiery president, Luciano Gaucci, didn’t think so, though. “That game was supposed to be fixed,” he once recounted. “Juventus had to win, but I told my players that I would send them on a retreat as far as China if they didn’t give everything they had.”

And while the match-fixing allegations were probably part of Gaucci’s usual exaggerations, his threats may have been just enough to inspire his defender Alessandro Calori.

With 53 minutes on the clock, Calori came up with a sharp right-footed shot that somehow made its way past the Juve goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar.

A young Carlo Ancelotti, sitting on Juventus’ bench for what was his first high-profile coaching job, tried everything he could to draw level, but the Perugia wall held until the (very late) full time whistle.

At 6.03 PM, Collina blew for full time, certifying Juventus’ suicide, delivering Lazio the most unexpected joy, and sparking an endless controversy – one that, in perfect Italian football dramatic style, still stands – about whether the game should have been postponed or not.