Alessandro Del Piero has opted to stay with Juventus despite the team's demotion.(Source: AFP)

Italian soccer had a major cleansing a few weeks ago when it was determined that four clubs engaged in match-fixing, referee tampering, and bribery. Three of those clubs remained in Italy’s top club league Serie A suffering a range of point deductions; the fourth club was demoted to the Italian equivalent of the American Hockey League. Juventus, the Montreal Canadiens of Italian soccer, were stripped of their two previous league titles, demoted to Serie B, given a significant points deduction and will miss out on the most esteemed European competition, the Champions League for at least two years. In addition Juventus will lose out significantly on ticket, merchandise and TV revenue. For a publicly traded organization like Juve this penalty is a death knell. With everything that’s gone wrong you have to question, who in their right mind would want to stay in an organization in such disarray?

Leading up to ruling at least half a dozen Juve stars were already linked to transfers to other clubs. After the judgment came down it didn’t take long for the player movement to kick up. World Cup star defender Fabio Cannavaro bolted along with teammate Emerson to Real Madrid. Midfielder Patrick Vieira and Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic put in their transfer requests and received their wish with a move to Inter Milan. Gianluca Zambrotta, Adrian Mutu and Lilian Thuram quickly followed suit moving onto other clubs.

Now that the dust has settled, Juventus is left with four major returning players who had every opportunity to leave the embattled club for greener pastures but opted to stay with the club to help them overcome their crisis and restore their successful legacy.  Gigi Buffon, Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved and David Trezeguet have become the white knights of Turin. Buffon, unquestionably the world’s best goalkeeper would have been the Kristin Cavalleri of the transfer market, able to pick and choose amongst all suitors; think Martin Broduer spurning all other clubs to play for the Albany River Rats. Nedved was linked to a Tottenham Hotspur move but opted to settle in Turin for the remainder of his playing career. Trezeguet, while not the same imposing striker he once was, was linked to several European league teams but declined the chance to move. Even though he received considerable interest particularly from English clubs Del Piero always seemed like the least likely of players to ever leave Juventus because if there’s one player who embodies the black and white it’s the former golden boy of Italian football.

From the moment Del Piero put on the Juve jersey greatness followed. He scored a hat-trick in his first ever start for Juventus and in his first year he led Juve to their first Italian crown in eight years. In his career thus far, Del Piero has led Juventus to 5 Italian titles (seven if you count the revoked ones), a Champions League title, and set the all-time goal scoring mark for the club. He is the undisputed leader of Juventus and is largely responsible for urging the other stars of the club to stick around and help restore the proud name of the club.

The Juventus situation is an extremely rare occurrence. How often do you see a team of the Yankees, Canadiens, Cowboys caliber be handed down such a high-profile punishment?  In situations of adversity you can either choose to view it as one of humiliation or an exercise in humility; Del Piero & Crew have obviously opted for the latter perspective by staying with the club. It’s a real statement of their loyalty to not only the club and their fellow teammates but also for the fan base. Despite the unsportsmanlike transgressions of the front office I know I’ll be cheering for the “Old Lady of Soccer” to make a roaring comeback this year led by the Fab 4.