Juventus have finally replaced Alessandro Del Piero by signing Carlos Tevez

Juventus have announced that they are to sign Carlos Tevez from Manchester City for the bargain price of £12m. It could be an excellent signing for Juve and one they have needed to make for some time. Carlos Tevez is the nearest thing they have had to Alessandro Del Piero since the man himself.

Since the heyday of Del Piero and David Trezeguet, Juventus have had a series of good, but not great, forwards. Vucinic, Quagliarella, Matri and Giovinco are all good players, but none of them have been able to match the goal and assist output of Del Piero. They are good, but not world-class. Tevez has shown that if he’s trusted and settled, he can be truly world-class. He can score and create goals with equal ease. He is the ideal player for Juventus, considering the brand of football they play and for his partnership with Fernando Llorente from next season.

Juventus’s pairing of Trezeguet and Del Piero combined raw physical ability with genial creativity and unpredictability, and both of them could score goals. Their strike force for next season looks very similar. The power, height and athleticism of Fernando Llorente, who arrives for free from Athletic Bilbao, is now allied to the stocky, bustling creativity of Carlos Tevez. They are like the Trezeguet and Del Piero of the new generation.

Juventus’s team and ethos is all about pressing, hard work, determination and quality. Carlos Tevez fits in this system perfectly. He has a tigerish defensive presence pressing high up the field, and has a huge desire to win. He nearly dragged West Ham away from relegation in 2007 on his own, and was the fulcrum of the Man City attack before Aguero came along. Like Del Piero, he is a talisman and a leader. He doesn’t need everyone else to be playing well in order to win a game on his own.

Juventus lacked nothing for hard work last season, and it showed in their Serie A victory. However, in the Champions League, they came unstuck against a Bayern side with more attacking variety. Tevez has that unpredictable streak; that ability to do something unexpected. Unfortunately that did manifest itself in going AWOL in City’s title-winning year; but on the pitch, it’s a valuable asset.

Tevez and Del Piero share another key trait; technical quality. Not many players in the world could strike a football as well as Del Piero in his prime, and Tevez has shown similar aptitude. They score free-kicks, take corners and score goals from long range. They are both small, but it gives them incredible balance. Del Piero was certainly a much more elegant and sophisticated mover than Tevez, but Tevez is just as effective and intelligent with his movements and his use of other players’ movements. Del Piero always knew where Trezeguet and Nedved were going to be, and he knew how to find them. Tevez has shown that he possesses that same intuition with Cristiano Ronaldo and Sergio Aguero, the same ability to see the game unfolding in front of him and play a difficult and game-changing pass to precision.

Juventus have tried plenty of different options as they tried to find a new Alessandro Del Piero. Their great homegrown hope Sebastian Giovinco has the stature and trickery, but not the goals. Juventus want the inventiveness, the movement, the passing and also the goals that Del Piero gave them, and they have signed that in Carlos Tevez. Carlos Tevez could finally be Juventus’s new Alessandro Del Piero.