 Match programme cover | |||||||
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| Date | 26 November 1996 | ||||||
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| Venue | National Stadium,Tokyo | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus)[1] | ||||||
| Referee | Márcio Rezende de Freitas (Brazil)[2] | ||||||
| Attendance | 48,305[2] | ||||||
←1995 1997 → | |||||||
The1996 Intercontinental Cup was a football match betweenJuventus of Italy andRiver Plate of Argentina on 26 November 1996 at theNational Stadium inTokyo, Japan. The annualIntercontinental Cup, it was contested between the winners of theUEFA Champions League and theCopa Libertadores. Juventus were appearing in their third Intercontinental Cup. They had lost the competition in the1973 Intercontinental Cup before winning the1985 edition. River Plate were making their second appearance after their victory in the1986 edition.
The teams had qualified for the competition by winning their respective continent's primary cup competition. Juventus won the1995–96 UEFA Champions League by beating Dutch teamAFC Ajax 4–2 inthe final in a penalty shoot-out after the match finished 1–1. River Plate were the1996 Copa Libertadores champions after winning thetwo-legged final 2–1 againstAmérica de Cali of Colombia.
Watched by a crowd of 48,305, the match featured a goalless first half where Juventus applied a consistent pressure on the Argentines. River Plate failed to combat this with their plan of a more techinal style of play. In the second half, the team would create more chances on Juventus' box. However, it was the Italians who took the lead late in the game whenAlessandro Del Piero scored in the 81st minute. They held this lead in the remaining nine minutes to win the match 1–0, securing their second Intercontinental Cup win.
The 1996 Intercontinental Cup was 35th edition of the Intercontinental Cup, a yearlyassociation football match contested between the champions of theUEFA Champions League and theCopa Libertadores.[3] The first edition of the match was in 1960, which was won Spanish club Real Madrid after beating Uruguayan clubPeñarol 5–1 on aggregate.[4] By the late 1970s, the yearly matches were struggling,[5] many European champions had withdrawn from the competition and left them to the runners-up due to various matches ending in serious fights.[3] In 1980, British companyWest Nally had discussions Japanese advertising companyDentsu and Japanese car companyToyota to support theInterSoccer4 program. Toyota proposed to make an event for them, after learning about the Intercontinental Cup they decided to remake it to the Toyota Cup.[6] The first match under Toyota's name would be the1980 Intercontinental Cup, won byClub Nacional de Football.[7]
Juventus qualified for the Intercontinental Cup as a result of winning theUEFA Champions League. They won the1995–96 UEFA Champions League by beating Dutch teamAFC Ajax inthe final, in a 4–2 in a penalty shoot-out after the match finished 1–1. This was their third appearance in the competition. Juventus had first playedIndependiente in the1973 edition, losing 1–0. In1985 they facedArgentinos Juniors, who they beat in a penalty shoot-out, after the match finished 2–2. River Plate qualified for the Intercontinental Cup as the reigning1996 Copa Libertadores champions. They beatAmérica de Cali of Colombia2–1 on aggregate to win their secondCopa Libertadores. River Plate were making their second appearance in the competition. Their previous appearance in the1986 edition resulted in a 1–0 win against Romanian teamSteaua București.[3]
Juventus' last match before the Intercontinental Cup was againstAC Milan in the1996–97 Serie A, which finished in a goalless draw.[8] The last match River Plate played before the competition was againstSan Lorenzo in the1996 Torneo Apertura. They won 4–0 courtesy of two goals fromJulio Cruz and one apiece fromMarcelo Salas andRamón Medina Bello.[9]
From the start of the match, Juventus applied consistent pressure, as they looked to negate River Plate from orchestrating any opportunity product of their ball possession. For this purpose, they positioned their defense high up the field, and managed to suffocate their opposition courtesy of their anticipatory defending and recoveries by the midfield ofDidier Deschamps,Angelo Di Livio andVladimir Jugović.[10] This allowed them to catch the opposition attackers offside twice.[11] The Argentines tried to combat this deficit by playing a more technical style of football, but failed to do so in their attempts.[12] In one occasion, River Plate were denied a chance when the assistant referee raised his flag, halting the play even though defendersPaolo Montero andSergio Porrini were caught on a late run.[13] Nonetheless, the Juventus game plan rendered the Argentine team unable to get ahold of the ball. In the midst of this pressure, goalkeeperRoberto Bonano stepped up to hold off the scoring prospects from the Italians, denyingAlen Bokšić three times.Juan Pablo Sorín also contributed to maintaining the tie by saving a shot fromZinedine Zidane that was headed for the net. In response to this pressure, River Plate were only able to force a couple corner kicks. The offensive line for their side would produce their first shot on target at the 38-minute mark, through attacking midfielderEnzo Francescoli.[10] In total, Juventus registered eight shots on target, while their opposition managed two. Nevertheless, the goalless scoreline remained at half-time.[11]
The Argentine side made a recovery in the second half, as they managed ball possession in Juventus' half. During this time, the Italians started to rely on fouls to prevent their chances.[11] Although this caused their attacks to lack depth, River Plate were able to threaten their opposition through crosses.[10] Francescoli stepped up for his team, taking the set pieces, and managing to funnel danger into the Juventus area. In the 51st minute, his first delivery met Sorín, whose header went wide. A minute later, a follow-up cross was connected byEduardo Berizzo, but the centre-back sent the ball across the goal.[11] The Italian side continued to have scoring prospects thanks to their offensive line, but Bonano kept fending off their efforts.[10] Among them, he successfully defended header from strikerAlessandro Del Piero in the 57th minute.[14]
At the 74-minute mark, River Plate managerRamón Díaz made the first substitution of the match when he subbedLeonel Gancedo in for fellow midfielderSergio Berti.[10] Shortly after, the Argentine team had another chance through a free kick from Francescoli, whichHernán Díaz headed wide. Right afterward, their side would have their clearest opportunity through a play from the right, in whichRoberto Monserrat linked up with the full-back.[11] The sequence would eventually give way to a passing play involving Francescoli andAriel Ortega, which resulted in the forward rattling the crossbar.[10] Following the finish, Juventus goalkeeperAngelo Peruzzi brought down Ortega inside the area, but the action went unnoticed by Brazilian refereeMárcio Rezende de Freitas.[13] Nine minutes from injury time, the Italians found the opening goal after a Di Livio corner was followed up through a Zidane header.[14] The ball then fell to Del Piero, who unleashed a shot from the edge of the six-yard box to put his team ahead.[10][2] River Plate attempted to launch two responses at an equaliser, but the efforts from Gancedo andCelso Ayala were unsuccessful.[11] In between shots, they also switched strikers by replacingJulio Cruz withMarcelo Salas. Although Juventus possessed counter-attacking chances, neither squad managed to score any further goals, and thus the match ended 1–0 to the Italians.[10]
          Juventus |      River Plate |
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Man of the Match: |
After the end of the match, celebrations of Juventus fans started inMilan and in the main streets ofTurin, where they played horns and trumpets in means of celebration and displayed theirbanners of the club.[14] Meanwhile in Japan, Del Piero received a Toyota car worth around 31,000$US dollars (equivalent to $64,262 as February 2026) for winningman of the match.[12][15] Diaz talked positively on the match despite his team's defeat. Calling it incredible, and that due to their defeat they managed to get great experience on how is it to become world champions.[14] His Italian counterpart,Marcello Lippi, agreed with him, however he stated that it could've been a better match if low temperatures weren't present during it.[12]
Juventus reached thefinal of the1996–97 UEFA Champions League, which they lost toBorussia Dortmund 3–1.[16] They would win the1996–97 Serie A, however, which qualified them to the1997–98 edition of the tournament.[8] River Plate followed a similar suit, as they were also unable to retain their respective continental title.[17] Nevertheless, they were crowned champions of the1996 Torneo Apertura, the first of the three consecutive league titles they would go on to win.[18]
In November 2004, club doctor Riccardo Agricola was given a 22-month prison sentence and fined €2,000 for sporting fraud by providing performance-enhancing drugs, specificallyerythropoietin, to players between 1994 and 1998,[19][20] Leading hematologist Giuseppe d'Onofrio said that it was "practically certain" that midfieldersAntonio Conte andAlessio Tacchinardi had taken erythropoietin to overcome brief bouts ofanemia, and that it was "very probable" that seven other players –Alessandro Birindelli,Alessandro Del Piero,Didier Deschamps,Dimas,Paolo Montero,Gianluca Pessotto andMoreno Torricelli – had taken erythropoietin in small doses.[21] Diaz stated after the fact that it was a possibility that Juventus doped on the match, elaborating further and saying that "you could see that there was a huge physical difference" not only compared to his team, but to other Italian clubs as well.[22][23]
In April 2005, theCourt of Arbitration for Sport gave the following advisory opinion, in part: "The use of pharmaceutical substances which are not expressly prohibited by sports law, and which cannot be considered as substances similar or related to those expressly prohibited, is not to be sanctioned by disciplinary measures. However, regardless of the existence or not of any judgement rendered by a State court, sports authorities are under the obligation to prosecute the use of pharmaceutical substances which are prohibited by sports law or any other anti-doping rule violation in order to adopt disciplinary measures."[24] In December 2005, Agricola was acquitted of the charges by Turin's court of appeal.[25] In March 2007, in the final verdict by theSupreme Court of Cassation, stated that "in the years of 1994 to 1998 there was no ascertained positive case of doping substances by Juventus players, that the purchase of erythropoietin or its administration to the athletes of the club does not emerge from any act of the trial, and that the same expert had identified the possibility of an administration of erythropoietin in distant terms from the sure evidence ("very probable" and in two cases "practically certain"): it is that therefore, the judgement of probability and not of certainty, did not allow for a statement of responsibility."[26] The verdict also went on to say: "In response to the conclusion taken, the territorial court notes that there were no deferred values higher than the limits set in the various antidoping protocols and that the situation of the Juventus players, both with reference to the average hematological values, and in relation to that of material balance, did not differ from the national average population.[26]
