logo
logo
Alvaro Morata celebrates scoring his second for Chelsea against Crystal Palace in the Premier League. Stamford Bridge 04-Nov-2018.

The nine players to play for both Chelsea & Juventus: Morata, Anelka…

Chelsea and Juventus will meet once more in their Champions League group stage match at Stamford Bridge this evening, with the outcome crucial in determining who will seal that vital first-place finish.

The two clubs have met surprisingly few times, this being just their sixth meeting since their first in February 2009.

That’s despite the two being consistent Champions League sides and their strange affinity for the same managers with Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, and Maurizio Sarri having all spent time in London and Turin.

There are also nine players who have trodden that same path from northern Italy to west London and we’ve looked at all of them and how they fared here.

Gonzalo Higuain

Higuain is the most recent player on this list to have played for Chelsea, and it’s difficult to remember his lacklustre loan spell in West London.

When the Argentine signed for Juventus in the summer of 2016, he became the most expensive South American player of all time after having established himself as one of European football’s premier goalscorers at rivals Napoli.

But by 2018 he had fallen out of favour in Turin and went to AC Milan on loan for half a season before Chelsea and his former Napoli manager Maurizio Sarri came calling.

Under Sarri, Higuain had hit his peak when he netted a record-equalling 36 times in Serie A and expectations were high that the Argentine would be the goal-scoring striker Chelsea needed.

Yet he struggled to adapt to English football or refind his form and Higuain’s time at Chelsea was underwhelming, to say the least. He followed his manager back to Turin in the summer, Chelsea politely refusing their option to buy.

Alvaro Morata

Much like Higuain, Morata arrived at Chelsea to be the goalscoring striker they so craved but he never quite fit the bill.

The Spanish striker has had a bizarre back-and-forth career. He was a youth player at Atletico Madrid before making his professional breakthrough with Real Madrid but then left for Juventus.

He went back to Madrid for one season when they activated a buy-back clause but it was then on to Chelsea who first loaned and then sold him to Atletico. He is now back at Juventus. It gives you a headache just thinking about it.

He spent just a year a half at Stamford Bridge after arriving for a then-club-record £60million.

“At Chelsea, I didn’t want to leave the house anymore, it was hard,” He told El Chiringuito in 2019.

“I thought I’d go far enough away so that I didn’t have to have the pressure to always win. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or meet people.”

He will no doubt have his eyes on some payback this evening.

Juan Cuadrado

Yes, Cuadrado played for Chelsea. Not only that, but he won the 2014-15 Premier League.

He signed for Conte’s side in the 2015 January transfer window but only made a handful of starts before heading to Juventus that summer first on loan for two seasons and then permanently in 2017.

He still plays regularly for the Bianconeri, recently scoring an injury-time winner against Fiorentina.

Nicolas Anelka

Unsurprisingly the journeyman’s journeyman Anelka graced the pitches at both Stamford Bridge and the Juventus Stadium.

The Frenchman had a four-year stint with Chelsea between 2008 and 2012 where he made the most appearances of his career for a single club. Comparatively, he played just three times for Juventus, who he joined on loan from Shanghai Shenhua for the second half of the 2013 season.

READ: Nicolas Anelka: ‘Le Sulk’ who inspired plenty of smiles at Arsenal & Chelsea

Tiago Mendes

For a man who spent just one season at Chelsea, Mendes had quite an impact. Under Jose Mourinho, the Portuguese formed a vital part of Chelsea’s title-winning midfield three that 2004-05 season.

He lost just once in 34 Premier League appearances for Chelsea, a remarkable statistic. But when Michael Essien joined from Lyon, Mendes opted to head the other way for assured game time.

He played for Juventus between 2007 and 2010, in which time he locked the Juventus President in a toilet in order to avoid leaving on loan for Everton. Yes, seriously.

Adrian Mutu

To put it mildly, Mutu’s time at Chelsea was weird.

The Romanian attacker signed from Parma in 2003 as one of the best players coming out of Italy when Roman Abramovich began flexing his financial muscle. He scored four times in his first three games but the following season Mutu would fall foul of Mourinho, with the two falling out.

He would not be the first nor the last player to argue with Mourinho, but Mutu’s Chelsea career really came to a halt when he was banned from football for seven months after testing positive for cocaine.

This led to a series of lawsuits and appeals, with Chelsea firing Mutu over breach of contract and then pursuing sizeable compensation. Mutu consistently appealed against the decisions from various bodies which culminated in FIFA ordering him to pay over €17million to Chelsea.

Amid the mess, Mutu signed for Juventus in 2005 – but since he could not play for Juventus, both because of his ban and the Turin club not having a free non-EU player slot, the club arranged for him to sign for Livorno and then be bought by Juventus.

In 2013 FIFA decided these clubs were also liable to help pay the compensation to Chelsea, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport then reversed this decision.

This led Mutu to go to the European Court of Human Rights to appeal which, in 2018, rejected his arguments bringing to a close a 15-year dispute. Bloody hell.

Pierluigi Casiraghi

Casiraghi signed for Chelsea in 1998 but the striker only scored one goal in his two years at Stamford Bridge, suffering from a cruciate ligament injury which eventually forced him to retire in 2000.

He considered legal action against the club for underpaying him due to the early termination of his contract but don’t worry, it didn’t carry on for 15 years.

With Juventus between 1989 and 1993, he won the Copa Italia and two UEFA Cups.

Gianluca Vialli

It’s bloody Vialli. Brilliant at Juve, brilliant at Chelsea. What more is there to say?

READ: Gianluca Vialli at Chelsea: Smoking, champagne & standing ovations

Didier Deschamps

One of only three men to win the World Cup as a player and manager, Deschamps was an expert defensive midfielder.

He spent just the 1999-00 season at Stamford Bridge, during which time he won the FA Cup. But he made over 120 appearances for Juventus across five seasons prior to moving to England, filling up an impressive trophy cabinet.


More Chelsea

Remembering Andriy Shevchenko’s first 45 minutes as a Chelsea hero

The cult of Jose Mourinho at Chelsea: Hiding in laundry, pranking masseur…

Can you name Chelsea’s 15 most expensive transfers in history?

The 10 members of Chelsea’s 04-05 squad that have gone into coaching