First Sevilla, then Barcelona, now Juventus? Dani Alves can help take European success back to Italy

Ahead of the Uefa Champions League meeting between Sevilla and Juventus, Ian Hawkey focuses on Dani Alves – a former Sevilla right-back, now at Juventus who has achieved astonishing success in continental competitions.

Juventus have used the money from the sale of Paul Pogba to Manchester United by arming themselves for an assault on the Uefa Champions League. Striker Gonzalo Higuain, centre right, has arrived, as well as midfielder Miralem Pjanic, centre, and full-back Dani Alves. Giorgio Perottino / Reuters
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What will the long-serving men of Sevilla, those in the VIP seats, see when they gaze upon the Juventus line-up at the home of Italian champions on Wednesday?

An enduring core of an opposition side, for sure, and the sort of loyalty they, a club of high turnover, must envy.

Gianluigi Buffon, the Juventus captain, has been at the same club since Sevilla were last in the Spanish second division, just after the turn of the century.

What else might they envy?

The formidable recruits Juventus made to strengthen their bid for a Uefa Champions League title to follow the five successive Serie A crowns.

Sevilla, who last season played Juventus in the same group phase where they are paired this year, will note that Paul Pogba is no longer in black and white. But the vast funds Juve garnered from Manchester United for the France midfielder have been spread across the hiring of men with experience and know-how.

They have been spent on the hefty fee for Gonzalo Higuain, already scoring at a rate like he did with his previous club, Napoli, and on the wages of Dani Alves, emperor of Europe’s club competitions, dazzling collector of medals and dominator of right flanks.

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• Leicester City: Looking to put domestic woes aside in Europe

What do Sevilla think when they look at Alves in the shirt of his new club?

They remember Alves as the turbocharged teenager they scouted in Brazil and turned into probably the best piece of business their club have done in a millennium where Sevilla’s talent-spotting and profitable retailing has become the envy of the continent.

From Sergio Ramos of Real Madrid, to Ivan Rakitic of Barcelona, to Jesus Navas of Manchester City, to Carlos Bacca, of AC Milan, Sevilla graduates are peppered across European heavyweight clubs.

The Sevilla that found or nurtured them have become serially successful middleweights – last May they won their third Europa League title in succession – using the profits of their clever sales.

Ask Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, aka “Monchi”, the respected Sevilla sporting director which of the soaring ex-sevillistas he is most proud of having ushered upwards, and he will give you a list of a handful, reluctant to single out one.

But Alves will be on it, and the least of the reasons why will be the financial one.

Alves joined Sevilla for around €200,000 (Dh825,000) at 19. At that age, his haircuts were more conservative and his outfits less extravagant than the trademark dapper, rapperish clothes he would come to enjoy wearing as a superstar.

He arrived with the label of “right-back” next to his name. “Right-back”, Sevilla supporters soon learnt, was a loose description of what Alves did. He was here, there and everywhere, inexhaustible, motor of midfield, provider of passes from wide, of through-balls and startling combinations that yielded goals.

He made 43 assists in his six-and-half years at Sevilla, and helped the club begin their long love-affair with the Uefa Cup, as the Europa League used to be known.

Right-backs do not usually produce such productive statistics. Right-backs do not tend to command transfer fees of over €35 million, which was the size of the profit Sevilla made when Alves moved to Barcelona in the same summer Pep Guardiola became that club’s manager.

His eight years at Barca established Alves as the model for the adventurous full-back, the best in the world at his position, or at least the several positions he could seem to fill within a match.

And he missed very few matches, immune to the fatigue his energetic style ought really to carry with it.

“It’s hard to replace someone like Dani,” Barcelona’s Lionel Messi said as Alves’s contract ran down at Camp Nou last season.

He is inimitable. Juventus hired him on a free transfer, although on sky-high wages by the normal standards of a right-back. He is 33, far from wearied and in search of a record.

His two Uefa Cups with Sevilla, his three Champions League titles with Barcelona, plus the four Uefa Super Cups he collected with those two clubs put him second only to the great Paolo Maldini, late of AC Milan, as the greatest acquirer of continental titles in history. Juve have brought him for his expertise, for all that energy.

And he is a bustling, brilliant argument for why this might well be their season in the European Cup.

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