TURIN — The Old Lady has not looked this frail for a long, long time.
After finishing fourth in Serie A last season under rookie coach Andrea Pirlo, their first year without winning the Scudetto in a decade, Juventus started the new campaign by failing to earn victory in any of their opening four league games for the first time in 60 years. Just what you need ahead of a clash with European champions Chelsea.
They got back on track with back-to-back wins in their last two matches, but all is not well in Turin, and it hasn’t been for several years, on and off the pitch.
Cristiano Ronaldo arrived in Turin in 2018 from Real Madrid on a mission: to turn Europe’s perennial bridesmaid into a blushing bride. Three seasons later and the Portuguese left Italy having failed to steer Juve past the last eight in the Champions League. Juventus remain on two titles, compared to AC Milan’s seven.
Juve put all their eggs in one basket with Ronaldo, paying him more they could afford in wages, and neglecting other areas of the squad as a result. He won two league titles in three full seasons in Italy, but the Champions League success the seven-times runners-up craved eluded them. As a result, Turin never warmed to the Portuguese megastar.
“Fans obviously liked what they saw on the pitch, but he just never seemed that interested,” Guido Vaciago, journalist for Turin-based sports newspaper Tuttosport, tells i. “If Carlos Tevez returned to Juve, he would be carried around the city like a hero. Ronaldo wasn’t even particularly well-liked.
“I have covered Juve since 1999, and got to know former greats like Zinedine Zidane and Alessandro Del Piero personally. I never spoke to Ronaldo in three years. It was like he never wanted to be in Italy.”
Ronaldo departed for Manchester having perhaps caused more damage than he did good, plunging the club into financial peril that meant replacing him became rather difficult.
Despite not being universally popular, Ronaldo did carry the goalscoring burden during his time in Turin, leading the way in the Serie A goalscoring charts last term, scoring 29 goals in 33 games. Taking him out of the side this season has immediately exposed the lack of alternatives.
Federico Chiesa showed the world what he can do at Euro 2020, but for his club, he is in and out of the team, due to fitness concerns and his manager not trusting him to do defensive duties. Alvaro Morata blows hot and cold just like he does for Spain, Moise Kean, fresh from hardly setting the world alight at Everton, still has much to prove, while Paulo Dybala is yet to fulfil his enormous promise.
In their first match following Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United, Juve hosted newly-promoted Empoli in a match they were widely expected to stroll to victory in, but they ended up losing 1-0, without having had tested their opponent’s goalkeeper. It has got slightly better since, but the limitations of the post-Ronaldo forward line are clear for all to see.
All was rosy in Piedmont in May 2019 after Massimiliano Allegri had just become the first manager in Europe’s top five leagues to win four consecutive doubles. But that was not enough to satisfy this Old Lady. Allegri was moved on in the search for a more adventurous style of play, with Maurizio Sarri brought in. The football did improve, and a ninth straight Juventus Scudetto followed, but all was still not well.
“Allegri was seen as playing a more old-fashioned style, and Sarri a new, exciting one. He is like Italy’s version of Pep Guardiola,” Vaciago adds. “But the fans did not want him from the start, as he had said some famously derogatory things about the club in the past, and that lead to Sarri going even after winning the title. The club could not make up their minds what they wanted.”
Pirlo then came in and never looked like making it 10 successive Scudetti. The style of play was more progressive, but the results not of the required standard so Allegri returned this season. Things, however, have changed.
“He is much angrier now,” Vaciago says. “He is having a go at his players a lot more. It can’t have helped that there is no continuity at the club.”
Allegri 2.0 has got off to an inauspicious start to say the least. A young squad, one without Ronaldo to fall back on, is still finding its way. Chelsea must be careful, as Allegri is determined to turn things around and a victory against the European champions could be just the galvanisation Juve need.
A visit to this part of northern Italy, however, is not as daunting as it once was.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3EWPCSq
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