On Juventus' failed experiment

Yesterday at 02:47 PM

Now what?

The waning weeks of the Serie A 2024-25 campaign seem to be shaping up exactly as pundits, podcasters, and fans believed it would, with a battle between Inter Milan and Napoli, while the boys from Bergamo, Atalanta, try desperately to work their way back into Scudetto competition.

What nobody could have predicted to come from this season is the continued utter disaster that has come from the first year of the Thiago Motta and Cristiano Giuntoli experiment.

In articles from the late-summer months of 2024, I praised the decision from the Juventus board to bring in a newer, younger manager that had only weeks prior to his appointment had led Bologna on a miraculous run to Champions League qualification. At the time, it seemed that many, including myself, had become fed up with the staleness that had come from Max Allegri as Juventus' manager. It seemed that for the span of 2021 through 2024, nothing was working well for the Bianconeri, even under an esteemed manager that has seen more domestic titles than most dream of. Juventus won the Coppa Italia at the end of 2024's season, and that final trophy was a good way to send off the old gaffer.

The new system is vastly different from what the Juventus faithful have seen over the years, and it began early on with some key departures and arrivals. To name a few, Federico Chiesa was welcomed at Liverpool, Dean Hujisen found his stride at Bournemouth, and Fabio Miretti was loaned to Genoa. With some extra Champions League and transfer cash lying around, the powers that be decided to bring on some players who on paper seemed perfect. Teun Koopmeiners who can claim a European trophy, two-time Conference League runner-up Nico Gonzalez, and Brazil Olympic gold medalist Douglas Luiz.

Again, on paper ,this all made perfect sense.

New squad, new manager, new tactics, can't lose. Right?

Not exactly.

The earlier parts of the season painted a strange picture of a club who could muster enough to take down the likes of Manchester City and RB Leipzig, while forcing a 4-4 draw against one of the strongest Inter Milan sides of the 2020s, but could not find goals or continuing wins to save their lives. The newness and leeway given to the brand new squad and manager, as it always does, wore off quickly as the calendar turned to 2025. The big revelations were that Juventus are not a contender for any title, Motta is simply too married to his ways, new signings were failures, and there is an internal misunderstanding of what the Juventus badge means.

Over the period of two months, the Bianconeri were knocked out of the Supercoppa, Champions League, and Coppa Italia. These crash outs, while not unheard of for the Old Lady, came at the hand of some of the worst possible clubs out there. An AC Milan who had just appointed a new manager and has been mid-table all season stole the Supercoppa, PSV who was crushed by Juventus earlier in the season came back to kill UCL dreams facing a sluggish Juventus, and somehow the relegation-battling Empoli forced the Bianconeri to penalties in the Coppa Italia. These matches should have been easy, layup wins, and 10 or so years ago would have been. But today's J-logo club is a far stretch from the era of Giorgio Chiellini and Paulo Dybala.

To make matters worse, it seems that almost weekly there are reports about relationships breaking down between Motta and members of the squad. Some of these were naturally going to occur — Dusan Vlahovic's disenchantment with the management after Randal Kolo Muani showed up, or more recently with Kenan Yildiz riding the bench for the entire Fiorentina match. Though Michelle Di Gregorio was quick to claim that the locker room is with Motta after the loss in Florence, it simply does not seem that way. Players look sluggish and frustrated, unwilling to fight, while on the sideline Motta himself looks indifferent. But the key here is that Motta believes in his own methods, that even with the failures that Koopmeiners, Luiz, Kelly, and Gonzalez have been, they're paid for so they better get playing time. Even if it's at the expense of better options feeling alienated.

Those four new signings that cost combined €118.4 million in transfer and loan fees have proved that they are not Juventus quality players and that this little experiment has failed. There were so many promising youngsters in the past few seasons who seemed that they would be a new generation of Juventus players, ushering in an era of Italian football led by the names Miretti, Matias Soule, Nicolo Fagioli, and Hujisen. Instead, Guintoli overspent on overhyped talent that simply can't put together a decent match.

The history of Juventus is that of players who eat, sleep, and breathe a love of their club. They know the stories, titles, and colors are not simply part of a game, but a way of life. Giorgio Chiellini sometimes tells a story of a famous draw against AC Milan, where Alessandro Del Piero was furious in the locker room after.

"After a 0-0 to Milan at San Siro, the whole team was happy going back into the locker room. Milan were really strong and we were a new team. Del Piero started kicking everything in sight. We all looked at him strangely except for Buffon who said to let him be. Alex then called the team and said: 'Your happiness pisses me off. We can't be happy with a tie. Our mentality must grow because at Juventus a tie is a defeat. Get that into your heads.' That was the day I understood what it meant to wear the Juventus jersey."

This very mentality has slowly left Juventus over the years. Sporting directors can fish for talent from all over the world, and sometimes it works. Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new era for Milan in the 1990s and 2000s after the Bosman Law allowed for more international player mobility in Europe, but this is simply not the case for today's Juventus. How anyone in power can see Lloyd Kelly on the market and believe that he is fit to wear the Juve shirt simply makes no sense.

Juventus are, and always will be "un storia di un grande amore." But that "grande amore" for the Bianconeri has disappeared, and there is management, select players, office staff, and even some fans to blame for this.

I am aware that hindsight and rose-colored glasses can get in the way of rationality when it comes to something you so deeply love. In no way am I saying that the past three years were better under Allegri — rather they were pretty bad — but what the Juventus faithful have gotten this year is a new and different kind of bad. Allegri's squads were made up of veterans and youths, while Motta's are internationally-sourced bad players. Both come with their individual issues, the former's players loved the club but did not have the talent, the latter's do not have the fire to be a conquering Juventus squad. So yes, this experiment concocted by Motta and Giuntoli can now be called a resounding failure.

But don't take my word for it, Danilo weighed in on it during his farewell address, stating that "these emotions cannot be bought, with any fantasy project."