From zero to hero, Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri is on the brink of Champions League glory

When Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri was greeted with a hail of eggs and spat at on his first day at work, he could not have imagined he would lead them to the brink of an unprecedented treble of titles in his first season.

Yet that is what the phlegmatic 47-year-old Italian has achieved since succeeding Antonio Conte in July last year, with Juve already crowned Serie A champions and Italian Cup winners and facing Barcelona in Saturday’s Champions League final.

A former coach of Juventus’ detested rivals AC Milan, Allegri initially refrained from tinkering too much with Conte’s side, which had won three straight scudettos but failed to make much of an impact in Europe’s elite club competition.

However, as the season wore on he stamped his mark on the team and Juve are now in a position to win the treble for the first time in their history, matching Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan in 2009-10, the only Italian side to achieve the feat.

Conte favoured a more attacking approach, with a three-man defence and five in midfield.

Allegri mainly stuck with that system before switching to a more defensive 4-4-2 formation and instructing his players to sit back and hit opponents on the counter attack.

It is a strategy that has clearly worked for Juve this term and they ended the Serie A campaign 17 points clear of closest challengers AS Roma.

Whether it works against a Barca attack featuring Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez remains to be seen, but the way Juve’s defence dealt with Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema in the semi-finals was impressive.