As part of our new Brits abroad series, Adam Bate speaks to Ian Rush about his time at Juventus.
The Liverpool legend spent the 1987-88 season in Turin with Italian giants Juventus. Although the Welsh forward returned to Anfield after just one year in Serie A, he insists moving abroad was the best decision he ever made. Adam Bate caught up with him to find out more.
How did the move come about?
I'd been doing really well for Liverpool and there was lots of interest from abroad - Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus. But Liverpool's relationship with Juventus [after the Heysel disaster] saw me end up going there. I signed the year before I actually went there because you were only allowed two foreign players at that time in Italy. Juventus already had their quota so from that point of view I had to wait a year before I actually went there.
That must have been a strange feeling - knowing for a whole year you would be leaving for Italy?
It was a strange feeling but it's only actually when you go over there that you realise what it's all about. It's never easy to adapt and perhaps I should have done a bit more in that year before I went there to prepare. But I wanted to focus on my last year with Liverpool as I was thinking I wouldn't be coming back.
You'd won lots of trophies at Liverpool but it still must have been daunting...
I'd won everything at Liverpool but I still wanted to go and play against the best players in the world because with Wales not qualifying for the World Cup or the Euros or anything I didn't get the chance to play against the very best. And the best players were in Italy at that time. Walking into the dressing room, there was obviously a bit of a language problem early on. But I loved playing football so I had to work hard to adjust to it.
They had some fantastic players there - Antonio Cabrini, Gaetano Scirea and Michael Laudrup. How did you get on with them?
A lot of them didn't speak English, although Michael did. It took me time to learn the Italian language - it took me over two months - and that was the probably the hardest thing. It's a different culture in Italy and it took me time to adapt to that but, once I did, I got into it.
And you had some special moments out there...
I scored against Napoli. I scored the four goals against Pescara - including right-foot, left-foot and a header. And my last kick for Juventus was a penalty shoot-out [in a Uefa Cup play-off] against Torino in which I scored. That was my last competitive game for Juventus and meant they qualified for Europe and Torino didn't.
A lot of people point to the fact that you scored seven league goals, but it's worth noting that only Diego Maradona and Careca managed to find the net more than a dozen times in Serie A that year. Why was it so different?
It was very different tactically. It was much more defensive. If you went one goal up you would defend that lead, whereas at Liverpool we would try and score two or three. It was a case of 'at all costs the opposition must not score'. From that point of view it was very defensive.
If I thought I could win the ball in their half I would chase the defender down. But in Italy I'd look round and all the other players were on the halfway line. It's easier for one person to adapt than 10 people to adapt so I had to change.
So do you think it helped your game?
I became a better player at Juventus. I learned a lot about the tactics and a lot
