If, as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once quipped, “a week is a long time in politics,” then eleven years in football is forever. It seems staggering to recall now, but on this day eleven years ago, it was confirmed that Juventus would be relegated to Serie B for their part in the Calciopoli scandal. The Bianconeri had been initially handed a 30-point penalty for their first ever campaign in the second tier of Italian football, but it was on July 26, 2006 that the punishment was cut to 17 points and their demotion made certain.

Their crime was the involvement of Luciano Moggi in building a system of influence throughout the league, the club’s former Director General accused of handpicking referees for specific matches while also exerting his power over agents, players and other clubs. What is often forgotten is that Lazio, Fiorentina and AC Milan were also punished, while Inter – later revealed to be a driving force behind the entire scandal – were found innocent.

Driven by UEFA’s insistence to know who would represent Italy in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, the whole case was conducted at breakneck speed, a hastily conducted trial leaving all parties immensely dissatisfied. Almost immediately after the ruling, a Juve team that had swept all before them on the pitch fractured beyond repair. Coach Fabio Capello fled to Real Madrid, taking Fabio Cannavaro and Brazilian midfielder Emerson along with him, while Lilian Thuram and Gianluca Zambrotta headed to Barcelona.

The club’s entire board resigned, sponsors scrambled to renegotiate the terms of their agreements and it began to look as if Juventus would struggle to overcome the fallout of the investigation. To further rub salt in the Old Lady’s gaping wounds, she was stripped of both the 2004/05 and 2005/06 Serie A titles, with the latter handed to an Inter side that had finished a distant third in the table. Watching Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira join the Nerazzurri only enhanced the bitterness felt towards the Milanese club by Juve supporters, a hatred that burns as strongly today as it ever has.

It was an exodus of talent that rocked the Bianconeri, but there would soon be an incredible turn of events that few believed was possible. It began with a heartfelt letter from club captain Alessandro Del Piero who, fresh from netting a shootout penalty that helped Italy capture World Cup glory just a month earlier, pledged to stay and fight. “A true gentleman never leaves his lady” he said, and soon others would follow suit.