The Juventus Paralympic team Juventus One competes in competitions organised by the Paralympic and Experimental Football Division (DCPS) of the FIGC.
Over the years, the Juventus One staff has continuously developed and expanded its roster of athletes with disabilities, creating teams for each of the four levels provided, thus allowing the players to fully express their abilities.
Today, Juventus One represents a consolidated project and a well-structured reality: starting with around forty athletes in 2017, the team has now grown to include, in the 2024/2025 season, as many as 125 players with cognitive, relational, and sensory disabilities, divided into seven teams.
Beyond the sporting dimension, the project extends outside the pitch as well.
Created in 2017 as ‘Juventus for Special’ and developed in collaboration with local partner ASD Nessuno Escluso [No One Excluded], Juventus One has a dual soul: sporting and social, to promote the inclusion of people with cognitive-relational disabilities through the practice of sport. It is the bold, concrete response to a still very traditional view of disability and its connection with sport.
The project is based on an axiom that is as simple as it is important: disability is not a limitation, but only one of the characteristics of the human condition; this means breaking down biases and prejudices towards disability, as well as all those ‘pious’ attitudes often associated with the word.
This principle restores dignity to those with disabilities and gives them the opportunity to express themselves beyond those cultural and social limits leading to forms of marginalisation and exclusion. The primary objective thus translates into the deepest sense of the word inclusion: to ensure all people have the same rights and dignity in everyday life, as well as in sport.
Football, in particular, plays a key role.
The youth in the teams experience a real competitive environment: from the composition of the coaching staff to training sessions, from locker room management to the choice of positions in matches. The players are athletes in their own right and, as is the case in all football teams, must earn their place on the team through commitment, being awarded their starting jersey following good performance on the pitch.
This approach is successful from both a sporting and a social point of view. The sense of belonging the athletes develop in Juventus One strengthens their awareness and self-esteem. The youth take the field with the desire to be part of a group, develop relationships, constantly improve and overcome their limits, proudly wearing the prestigious black and white jersey.
Drawing on the understanding that disability is not a limitation or a ‘special’ condition, but rather one of the many aspects common to human existence and diversity, in the 2023/2024 season Juventus worked to change the project’s name and identity. Juventus One is the result of this work; it's used officially since the 2024/2025 season and reflects a paradigm shift linked to the concept of ‘special’ when related to the notion of disability, embarking on a new cultural path that involves everyone, without distinction, in a true spirit of equality and inclusion.
The term One is the natural evolution of what is by now a historic project, having reached the milestone date of 3 December 2023, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. To celebrate the day, together with its partner Nessuno Escluso, the Club organised the event Juventus IS JUVENTUS, created precisely under the banner of inclusion.
The Paralympic team played a friendly mixed-level match together with players from the Women’s Under 19 and the Men’s Under 19 and Next Gen teams.
This special moment underscored how, just as two words can have the same meaning regardless of how they are written (Juventus /JUVENTUS), all the Club’s athletes are similarly part of one team, regardless of the league they belong to: Men’s, Women’s, U19, U23 or Paralympic.
The meaning of the event held at the training centre in Vinovo is thus embodied in its name: Juventus has so many members, so many faces and so many different human conditions, but it is one family: Juventus is one family, Juventus is ONE, Juventus is JUVENTUS. The event was also an important moment for reflection, culminating with a ‘disability experience’ in the finale that included the Club’s employees.
They were given the opportunity, through special ‘football’ trials, to experience and understand first-hand what taking the field with a disability means, whether sensory, physical or cognitive.
Competitive sporting dimension: this represents the core of the project and involves participation in the competitions of the FIGC Paralympic and Experimental Football Division, which serve as the main competitive events. However, the commitment of the Juventus One teams goes far beyond this: over the years, they have also taken part in numerous prestigious tournaments at both national and international level (such as the non-competitive EFDN international tournaments in Leverkusen and Breda). In the 2024/25 season, the project boasts several victories in the tournaments of Parma, Mantua, and Piemonte-Lombardia.
Educational dimension: Juventus One@School is the educational program – active since the 2018/2019 season – in which athletes from the Paralympic teams carry out dedicated training sessions in schools of all levels (elementary, middle, and high schools), offering students a direct and meaningful experience of disability.
Recreational and social dimension for the 6–16 age group: designed mainly for participants with autism spectrum disorders and cognitive disabilities, this project involves around 20 participants each year and provides a safe and stimulating environment to develop often unexplored skills and resources, while challenging biases linked to these conditions. In the 2024/2025 season, for the first time, the project introduced a division into two groups – “children” and “youth” – to better respond to individual needs.
2017/18 SEASON
2018/19 SEASON
2020/21 SEASON
2021/22 SEASON
2022/23 SEASON
2023/24 SEASON
2024/25 SEASON
