In a revealing interview, former Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci has shed light on the much-discussed altercation with then-manager Max Allegri, which culminated in the so-called “Porto-stool incident” back in February 2017.
Both had significant tenures at Juventus but were known for their rocky relationship, particularly during their initial periods at the club.
The incident in question followed a Serie A match against Palermo, where tensions boiled over before Juventus’s Champions League round of 16 match against Porto. Bonucci, speaking on PrimeVideoSportIT’s YouTube channel, as reported by Calciomercato, detailed how the conflict began:
“Against Palermo, Marchisio came back from the cruciate ligament and at the hour mark, he was done,” Bonucci recalled. He described his attempt to signal for Marchisio’s substitution, which was misunderstood by Allegri, leading to a heated exchange.
“I say to him ‘Claudio, you need to leave the pitch’, but he didn’t want to. So I signal to Allegri: ‘Change number 8 because he’s dead’. After 5 minutes he changed Sturaro with Rincon and I gestured to him. So he told me to f*** off and ‘focus on being a player’, he also told me ‘you’re an a**hole’, something like that.
“At the end of the match, I come back to the lockers, I find Allegri’s assistant [Landucci] trying to stop me and I slam him against the door and I ran into the dressing room. We attacked each other until they separated us,” Bonucci revealed, explaining how the clash led to his exclusion from the Porto game.
The fallout was significant. Allegri reportedly wanted Bonucci permanently removed from the squad, but club management intervened.
“He wanted me out of the squad permanently, but then the management mediated. I skipped Porto and then I started playing again but by then something had broken,” Bonucci noted.
This incident was part of a broader discord. Bonucci pointed out another grievance where he felt let down by the club’s management during the 2017 Champions League final in Cardiff. Reports had suggested he caused chaos in the locker room, which he vehemently denied.
“None of what was written about the locker-room debacle was true. There was no fuss,” he said, mentioning his conversation with then-director Marotta, who refused to publicly deny the allegations.
Bonucci also touched on the underlying tensions from the very start of Allegri’s tenure at Juventus in 2014, revealing that Allegri and his staff had initially considered moving him out due to perceived defensive errors.
“When we prepared the matches we focused on you because you made mistakes,” he quoted one of Allegri’s collaborators.
This revelation by Bonucci not only illuminates the personal dynamics between two key figures in Juventus’s history but also underscores the pressures and complexities within elite football teams, where personal and professional lines often blur.
