So long, Warrior! And thanks for all the battles!

As I already mentioned in my previous post, I started to support Juventus because of Alex Del Piero. He was (and is) an extremely charismatic and magnetic person. I tend to think that this scheme (supporting a player eventually turns into supporting his team) works in a vast majority of "choosing-a-favorite-team" cases. Though, I may be mistaken and there's some public opinion poll that proves my opinion wrong.

What I'm absolutely sure about is that Vidal has won a lot of new supporters for the club due to his charisma, magnetism and many other factors (including his play) that make one first admire a footballer and then a club he represents.

When Arturo Vidal joined Juve, I didn't pay much attention to the transfer as I saw the player for the first time. It was like "oh, just another cheap transfer of a good-but-not-top-footballer". I believe, that was a very popular thought among Juve supporters at that time. We all know what happened next. Unexpectedly quickly Vidal became one of the best (if not the best) box-to-box players in the world with prefix TOP. He became Juve's heart and engine. A Guerrero, a King Arturo.

Football supporters are dreadfully egoistic creatures. If they, for some reason, are indifferent to a player, he may leave whenever he wants and join whateverer club he wants (Llorente). But if a footballer's performance is stably brilliant and he wins the supporters' hearts as he helps the team to win trophys, he is automatically expected to be loyal to the club, never even think about leaving the club and disprove every little gossip of his possible transfer to some other team as soon as it appears (Vidal).

What often slips people's attention is the fact that in the age of reigning capitalism football is business and players are nothing but mercenaries. Especially it's true when we're talking about legionaries. One may expect loyalty from a native team member (Buffon, Chiellini, Bonucci, Marchisio), but not from a foreign one. Here I'll agree with Marotta who said that it's preferably to build the team around Italians.

Keeping that in mind, I wasn't angry with Arturo when he left. On the contrary. Though his official transfer to Bayern was one of the saddest news for me, I was grateful to him for the astonishing four seasons he spent in my favourite team. His presence on the pitch provided a lot of glorious battles, fierce tackles, brilliant passes and stunning goals. Not mentioning the emotions he provoked.

So long, Warrior, and thanks for all the battles!