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Juventus director Calvo credits Max Allegri for giving Next Gen players Serie A debuts
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Juventus director Francesco Calvo has expressed his delight after Tommaso Barbieri made his Serie A debut, becoming the sixth player from the NextGen team to graduate to the senior squad.
“Tommaso is the sixth player from the NextGen to debut in Serie A this season, and that is a huge result. This is the year when the project is really consolidated,” Calvo told DAZN.
“It has always been in the DNA of Juventus to churn out Italian youngsters who can play for the Nazionale and it makes us proud.”
Juventus coach Max Allegri has typically been reticent to field young players but has made the most of the youth academy and NextGen squad this season, giving a Serie A debut to 20-year-old right-back Barbieri.
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“He is clearly excited, but his teammates are helping him relax and feel that this is his natural habitat,” Calvo said.
Juventus are the only club in Italy to have taken up the option of a reserve team playing in Serie C, and this strategy is beginning to pay dividends.
“Talking about a specific Sassuolo player isn’t fair today. If we didn’t track every strong, young and Italian player in Serie A, then we wouldn’t be doing our job,” Calvo said in response to a question about the potential acquisition of Sassuolo midfielder Davide Frattesi.
The Bianconeri go into this game following a mixed week, as they lost to Lazio in Serie A but took a 1-0 first leg lead over Sporting CP in the Europa League quarter-final.
Next week, the club faces the verdict of their appeal against a 15-point penalty for artificially inflating transfer fees to boost capital gains, followed by the second leg of that quarter-final in Lisbon.