Dedicated del Piero is preparing for the fondest of farewells.(Sport) - The Mail on Sunday (London, England)

Byline: EUROVIEW with Graham Hunter

IT'S now 16 years since I was sent to Turin to try to understand why Juventus had just come to Ibrox and battered Rangers. What was happening? Who were the characters behind their story? Had Walter Smith's team been knocked out by the European champions-elect? They had, it transpired, and the first investigation culminated in then Celtic manager Tommy Burns asking me to set up a repeat study tour of Juve's training during which their boss Marcello Lippi and his fitness coach sat us both down in the club canteen and charted out how he was going to defeat Real Madrid in the quarter-finals two months hence.

Tommy, a treasure of a man, has gone now, while his good friend Walter is awaiting one last big project. Lippi is out of football, Tonio Conte, from that Juve team, is now the manager and full-back Gianluca Pessotto attempted suicide but is now well and living a balanced life. Paul Gascoigne is fighting mental-health issues and the referee from that 4-0 Juve win at Ibrox, Ahmet Cakar, was shot five times in the groin in an Istanbul shopping mall in 2004.

Father Time hasn't been kind to everyone who was involved that night, but the only man from that game still playing top-level professional football, Alessandro del Piero, goes from strength to strength.

STAYING Since then, he's won 15 major trophies, including the World Cup, become Juve's mostcapped footballer and passed the mark of 300 career goals.

Now 37, he has stuck by Juventus through thick and very thin. Neither the big investigation into the Doctor Agricola doping allegations, nor the scandal of Calciopoli, left his name with any stain.

This week, he helped his team through to the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia, playing 120 minutes. Tomorrow night it's one of the classics -- Juve v Roma.

But, sadly, it looks like these grand days are drawing to an end for del Piero, at least in Italy.

He and the Juventus President recently announced that it's time to cut the umbilical and Il Pinturicchio, nicknamed after an Italian renaissance painter, has invitations to play at Blackburn or QPR but I'd guess it will be Major League Soccer, whose call he'll answer once the tears and, hopefully, trophies of next May have come and gone.

Del Piero's intense shyness hides a lovely sense of humour and an absolute passionate love of this game. He'll be a loss. But he's happy, for the moment, to dwell on a life very well spent.

'I've kept all the posters which I had up on my bedroom wall when I was a kid because football has helped me realise all the dreams I had for myself way back then -- I like to be reminded of that,' he admits.

When he was young, his mum used to scold him for running around too much when he played because 'it might make me sweat too much and do me damage'. He didn't listen to her or her advice that he become a goalkeeper instead.

Not that this icon of Italian football initially believed he had a career in front of him.

'I was determined to be a lorry driver so that I could get around and see the world but, if not that, then I was going to follow my dad as an electrician,' he claims.

Only when he was noticed as a talented kid did the world of football start to notice that his positional sense and ability to convert tiny margins of space into goals was special.

Covering for the injured Roberto Baggio, del Piero scored four in his first three games for Juve but, of all his 313 goals, the one which will always live with me came in the absolute fervour of Italy v Germany, Dortmund 2006 -- the World Cup semi-final.

'Atmosphere in football has meant a lot to me over my career,' he says. 'From everything I've experienced, the Bernabeu remains very dear to me because of the ovation they gave me with Juve in 2008.

'Old Trafford, Ibrox and Anfield are the other three club venues that still give me shivers. But to score that goal in Dortmund with that atmosphere against Germany, the hosts, and for it to help us reach the World Cup final, when I was aged 32, was the night when I roared the most myself after scoring a goal.' So, Rome tomorrow, Udinese before Christmas and then the new year holds the cup quarterfinals for the Serie A leaders. But also the departure of a legendary club emblem.

Del Piero is mentally ready, but not physically finished.

'I still don't feel 37,' he shrugs. 'I still get a lot of joy from being on the ball. I love what I do. After all, you can't take any of this with you when you go.' Amen to that.

CAPTION(S):

STAYING POWER: del Piero is still at the top