Real Madrid’s ‘BBC’ must crack Juve’s defensive version: Buffon, Bonucci and Chiellini

Ian Hawkey breaks down hos Gianliuigi Buffon, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini - not to mention Andrea Barzagli - are prepared to stop Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Juventus goalkeeper Gigi Buffon, 37, have been with the club for the past decade.

All madridistas know what the letters BBC stand for, ever since the local media first started using them as a shorthand for what was hailed, last season, as the most potent trio of strikers in football.

“B” is for Benzema, “B” is for Bale, and “C” stands for Cristiano.

Welcome, then, supercharged BBC, a Real Madrid front line that should, against Juventus on Wednesday, welcome Karim Benzema back from injury, to Italy's version of BBC: that is Bonucci, Barzagli and Chiellini, the formidable trio of experienced, worldly central defenders who lined up together to protect Juve's 2-1 lead in the first leg against Madrid.

That trio also own a daunting record: nobody has scored against Juventus so far in the knockout phase of the competition when Andrea Barzagli, Leo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini have been policing the Juventus penalty area.

Ronaldo’s goal in Turin last week, the first goal Juve had conceded in European competition for well over five hours, was nodded in before Barzagli, a substitute, joined his long-time Juve and Italy colleagues on the pitch.

Massimiliano Allegri, the Juve coach, has pondered carefully whether to start with all three centre-halfs for the return at the Bernabeu.

Much of Juve’s success in the past three years in Serie A has been built on a back three of Barzagli, 34, Bonucci, 28, and Chiellini, 30, with wing-backs outside them.

But Barzagli, injured for much of this season, may sit out Wednesday evening, at least at kick off.

Allegri trusts his full-backs, the experienced Stephan Lichtsteiner and Patrice Evra, to modify their wing-back’s sense of adventure to think about containment, too, when they are part of a back four.

Barzagli or not, Madrid’s BBC still need to overcome the Juve BBC on Wednesday of Buffon, Bonucci and Chiellini.

Nowhere in the elite game is a unit of defenders and goalkeeper so tuned to one another’s habits and strengths, so aware of where cover is needed for certain flaws as these three.

Chiellini and goalkeeper Gigi Buffon, 37, have been club colleagues for a decade, fellow internationals for longer. Bonucci has been part of the firm, for club and country, since 2010.

Beat Chiellini for pace, as Bale and Ronaldo have the capacity to do, and Bonucci will more often than not have anticipated the possible emergency.

Their trademark virtues are their reading of situations and their combativeness.

Toughness is seemingly part of Bonucci’s DNA. Famously, he once chased an armed man down a street after an attempted robbery.

As for Chiellini, when he was bitten on the shoulder by Luis Suarez during last year’s World Cup, one of the denials of the incident issued from Suarez’s Uruguayan dressing-room immediately after the group match argued that the teeth-marks Chiellini pointed to were just old scars.

It was a desperate line of advocacy, but a cunning one, because Chiellini’s upper body is indeed a mosaic of stitches and gashes from a career of fearless duelling.

He finished the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Madrid with his head bandaged and bloodied.

Bonucci, Buffon and Chiellini can look to their right or left and see a pair of feisty full-backs.

Lichtsteiner has few peers in the game for his command of the twin aspects of the right-back role: attacking width when in possession and careful positional judgment when his team do not have the ball.

As for Evra, who turns 34 this week, his move last summer from Manchester United to Juve has delivered the possibility of a fifth European Cup final in an already eventful career and in the life of a man who has always known how to stick up for himself.

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