Juventus FC (Italy)

Juventus are one of a very small few clubs who can lay claim to being the biggest club in the world. The third most successful club in European history (after AC Milan and Real Madrid), they're also the most supported club in Europe with an estimated 170 million fans around the world, and it is reckoned that one in three Italian football fans follow the Juve.

They were formed in 1897 as Sport Club Juventus by Massimo D'Azeglio Lyceum school in Turin. They joined the Italian Football league in 1900, and it only took them five years until they won their first of many Scudettos. Since then they have spent their entire history in the top flight - bar the 2006/07 season when they were relegated as punishment for being part of the Italian Match Fixing Scandal.

But they didn't always play in the black and white stripes. For the first six years of their existence they played in rather snazzy pink shirts with a natty black tie - although they claim it was because the wrong ones got delivered before their first match... yeah, we've tried that one too. They changed them to the more familiar stripes in 1903 when their old ones started to fade, so sent to England for a shipment of Notts County shirts.

They've led a nomadic life and have had a number of home grounds over the years. For the first couple of years they played at the Parco del Valentino and Parco Cittadella, before settling on Piazza d'Armi Stadium for a few years, unitl 1908 (aside from a couple of seasons where they nipped over to the Corso Re Umberto. After that they lived at the Corso Sebastopoli Camp until 1922 and then spent the next eleven years at Corso Marsiglia Camp. It wasn't until 1933 that they settled on a more regular home, the Stadio Benito Mussolini - although they changed the name Stadio Comunale Vittorio Pozzo after the war for some reason. And there they stayed until 1990, when they moved into the Stadio delle Alpi, built for the 1990 World Cup - although in 2006 they moved back to Mussolini's old gaff, now renamed again to the Stadio Olimpico di Torino for a few seasons while they do up the Alpi.

In total they've won 27 league titles (also coming second another 20 times), nine Coppa Italias, Four Italian Supercups, and the Serie B title after their year in disgrace. On top of that they were the first club to win the European, UEFA and Cup Winners Cup, as well as the Intertoto Cup and the UEFA Super Cup, and when they won the Intercontinental Cup they became the first club side in the world to have won every available international competition. No wonder on of their many nicknames is Italy's Girlfriend.


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AC Siena (Italy)

Any team in Italy playing in the historic black and white stripes is in for a tough time, when you've dragged yourself to the top table after years of under-achieving the pressure is really on. And since Siena finally dragged their way to Serie A in 2003 it's been a constant battle with relegation - one they finally lost in the last few games of this season.

They formed in 1904, as a sports club with the slightly cumbersome name of Società Studio e Divertimento  or The Society for Study and Entertainment if you're not so good with your Italian. A general sports club, they chose their back and white colours in tribute to the city's coat of arms - so they most definitely can't be accused of pinching them from their illustrious cousins in Turin.

Once the football club really got going in 1908, they renamed themselves Società Sportiva Robur (Robur the Italian for Strength, still features on the club's crest). They then pottered about moderately in the middle leagues until the immediate post war years when Serie A and B merged and split into regional leagues - but even though they finally reached the top level of Italian football, the unusual circumstances meant they still were considered a full blown Serie A club.

In 2007 they briefly flirted with another name change. Their sponsors, the local bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena suggested that they could change their long-standing title to AC Siena Montepaschi for a bit more cash, and although they formally announced their new name, the Italian FA refused to recognise it, so they reverted back to their less commercially motivated moniker.

Famous old boys include the Norwegian ex-Chelsea and Leeds star Tore André Flo, briefly good Middlesbrough goal machine Massimo Maccarone, the marginally unhinged German keeper Alex Manninger and a quick stint for Brazilian international Roque Júnior.

After seven years of constant relagation battles it will probably come as something of a relief for the Siena fans to actually win a few games next season. Let's hope they spring right back and give their more famous stripe-alikes a bit more of a challenge next time they make the top flight.

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SC Young Fellows Juventus (Switzerland)

In a country famous for its fabulous team names, Sportclub Young Fellows Juventus is among the finest. Currently playing in the third tier of Swiss football, this Zürich based side were formed in 1992, after the merger of the much older and historic local sides Young Fellows Zürich (founded in 1903) and Società Calcistica Italiana Juventus Zurigo (founded in 1922). So despite what seems like a right mouthful of a name, it seems like they got away with it lightly!

Their biggest achievement was when they won the Schweizer Cup (as Young Fellows) in 1936, and until last season's relegation they had been plying their trade in the Dosenbach Challenge League, the second level of national football in the country. 

Their Stadion Utogrund home, with its unusual, wave-shaped stand running down one whole length of the ground, can hold 2850 happy punters, and it only costs a measly eight quid to get in. So they're definitely worth a visit if ever you're in town - despite the vast and unfriendly running track that loops around the pitch. But the best thing of all about this cosy little club is that they're sponsored by a pizza restaurant - the rather tasty looking Pizzeria Sorriso. The after match meals for this mob have just got to be good!

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Tauro FC (Panama)

Tauro Fútbol Club are the most successful team in Panamanian league history, with nine wins and eight runners up gongs under their belts since their relatively recent foundation in 1984. Like many other stripes around the world, they are believed to have chosen their strip because their founder, Italian industrialist Giancarlo Gronchi was a fan of some mob from his homeland called Juventus.

They play in the slightly obtuse Liga Panameña de Fútbol, where like an increasing amount of  countries in Latin America the season is split into two tournaments - the Apertura and Clausura. Both of these have two stages - a round robin league where everybody plays everybody else, followed by a knockout where the top four team have a series of play-offs to decide the winner. 

Relegation is decided by adding both sets of round- robin tables, and the winners of both halves of the season qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League. And you thought our play-off systems were tricky to fathom! Prior to the creation of the main national league, Tauro played in the Liga Distritorial de Chepo, a league for clubs from the Eastern side of the country.

Interest in football comes a distant second in a country obsessed by baseball, and so Tauro's achievements in becoming the most popular club in Panama and begining to bring the game to the masses is even more remarkable.

They have a great rivalry with their fellow Panama City club Plaza Amador, their matches known locally as El Clásico. This dates back to the very first match in the LPF where Tuaro's Carlos Maldonado scored the debut goal in the competition's history. Current stars include captain Luis Moreno, a much capped Panamanian international, Colombia journeyman Joan Melo and Argentinian strike man Matias Bernal. The team are also notable for having kept the same manager, Uruguayan Miguel Mansilla, for over 20 years - a feat almost unheard of in the volatile world of Central American football.



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Adelaide City (Australia)

Australia is known throughout the world as a passionate and proud sporting nation. But little is known of their club football outside their shores. Indeed, all we in the UK used to know of their domestic leagues was as part of the close season Summer football pools coupons. But many of those names that we hoped would manage a score draw and help bag us a moderate fortune have long and proud histories - and few better than The Mighty Zebras of Adelaide City.

Formed in 1946 as many Aussie clubs were by a group of Adelaide residents of Italian heritage, the team were originally called simply Juventus, before extending it to Adelaide Juventus in the mid sixties. Eleven years later they changed again to Adelaide City, finally losing their link to the Italian favourites, but keeping the black and white kit all the same. They are currently among the tops sides in the regional South Australian Super League, although they spent many seasons in the old National Soccer League, winning the title three times before it folded in 2004.

Towards the end of their stint in the NSL they became known as Adelaide Force, when the league's sponsors were trying to rock and roll it up a bit, but reverted to City when they chose not to move into the new rebranded and highly franchised A-League. Since their reversion to the regional league they have won the title four times off the bat, but as promotion to the A-League is invitational and not automatic they have not taken their rightful place back in the top flight.

Notable former players include the one time Coventry and Portsmouth striker, John Aloisi, former Chelsea, Swindon and Millwall hitman David Mitchell and the tragic ex-Norwich star Justin Fashanu.

In their 64 year history they have won an outstanding 17 titles at the various levels they have played, and surely if it were not for the curious politics of Australian football they have reclaimed their rightful place at the top table of their national league a long time ago.

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Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas (Brazil)

Very little is simple in a country as vast and diverse as Brazil, and getting to grips with the history of Botafogo and its projectory through the various layers of its nations football league system is no exception. Pinpointing the club's exact genesis is tricky, but popular legend cites it as being the foundation of a rowing club called the Club de Regatas Botafogo in the summer of 1894. Based in the beach area of Botafogo, which means literally 'he who sets fire', they chose as their colours black and white, and devised the Lone Star emblem that they've kept to this day.

Ten years later in 1904, a local football team called Electro Club was formed by a bunch of school mates during an algebra class. They chose their black and white striped strip because one of their number was an ardent Juventus fan. After one of their grandmother's complained that the name sounded a little silly, they quickly changed their name to Botafogo Football Club. They soon became one of the strongest teams in the city, winning the local championship many times in their first few years.

The football club and the rowing club finally merged in 1942. Despite having the same team colours and hailing from the same part of town, it never dawned on them to pool their resources until a basketball challenge between the two. When one of the football club's members died suddenly after the game, the president of the rowing club (the famous Brazilian poet Augusto Frederico Schmidt) deemed that the two should club together in his memory. From then on in, they shared the same badge and the same general management. I told you nothing was simple in Brazil.

Until as recently as 1971 there was no national league in the country, because of its massive size the difficulty of travelling between the regions. So in that time, Botafogo played in a number of regional, state and invitational leagues and tournaments. Their most impressive record is in the Rio de Janeiro state league, which they have won a massive 19 times - plus another 27 other titles from a variety of regions - including one national league title in 1985.

The club has seen some of the most famous names in Brazilian football history grace its stripes. The names roll off the tongue like a fantasy league of greatness - Bebeto, Carlos Alberto, Jairzinho, Josimar, Nilton Santos. But the greatest of them - and in many eyes the greatest footballer of all time - was a little fella with wonky legs called Garrincha.

Manuel Francisco dos Santos was better known by his nickname - a local phrase meaning Little Bird. he was the first international superstar of Brazilian football, and dazzled the planet in their twin victories in 1958 and 1962. Widely regarded as the greatest dribbler in the history of the game, his success was even more spectacular as he was born with a series of birth defects, including a deformed spine, a right leg that bent inwards, and a left leg that was two inches shorter and curved outwards. That he could walk at all was fantastic. That he could play like and angel was nothing short of amazing.

Sadly he died almost destitute in 1983, a victim to the wicked alcoholism that had blighted his family. But despite all that, thousands of well-wishers turned up to his funeral to pay their respects to Alegria do Povo - the Joy of the People. They still fly flags with his face on at Botafogo. But had he lived in a more televised age he would be an international household name perhaps even greater than Pelé.

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