How A Broken Juventus FC Saved Serie A

There was a grim inevitability in the way Juventus FC won its ninth consecutive Serie A title in 2020.

Having replaced Max Allegri, the coach who’d guided the Bianconeri to five of those crowns, with the eccentric Maurizio Sarri, it had appeared for parts of the season the club might fail.

By this stage Juventus had become so used to claiming the Scudetto its hierarchy had decided it didn’t just want to win, it wanted to win better.

Sarri had been brought in with that in mind, the crowning achievement on his CV was building a Napoli team who lit up European soccer with exciting attacking play but ultimately earned no titles.

The desire to claim hearts as well as trophies was in addition to another lofty goal; to finally triumph in Europe.

Allegri had taken Juve to two Champions League finals, failing on both occasions at the final hurdle.

However, the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo was meant to solve this issue, after all, he had more winner’s medals than practically everyone else in the game.

The trouble was, the style and superstar version of Juve wasn’t as seamless as the club might have hoped.

Nevertheless, as had been the way for the previous eight years, they found a way to get over the line.

As ESPN writer Bill Connelly wrote as the season reached its conclusion; “for much of the 2019-20 Serie A campaign, it looked as if this would be the year that Juve’s incredible title streak would end.”

“This wasn’t a dominant romp; they’re third in the league in goal differential, and if they drop more than two points in their remaining matches, they’ll fail to hit 90 points in league play for the first time in five years. Still, the result will end up the same as normal,” he added.

For the neutral observer, this was the most disheartening aspect of Juve’s title win, that it had been achieved without the team having to click or be as imperious as in previous years.

It was a bad sign for Serie A, a division that had been in decline since the late 2000s.

The concern in 2020 was Juventus was establishing a level of financial superiority which meant it would be difficult for any other Italian side to bridge the gap.

It was a situation often compared to the other two European giants with revenues that could compete with the riches of the English Premier League, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain. They too had achieved domestic dominance while the financial polarisation with the smaller teams had grown massive.

As Connelly pointed out: “This will be Juve’s 36th top-division title in Italy. Their dominance is not new, but until the 21st century, they had never won more than five titles in a decade or nine over two decades. Winning nine in a row is a new level.”

What we didn’t know at that stage was Juventus had peaked, and the hubris which lead to the recruitment of Sarri and Ronaldo would be its undoing.

But the real winner from this grand unraveling, well, that’s been Italian soccer.

Things fall apart

If hiring Sarri was a demonstration the club thought a coach with no track record could still deliver the Serie A title to Turin, replacing him with Andrea Pirlo the following season showed they thought a complete novice could do it.

The legendary midfielder had barely graduated from the Italian managerial school Coverciano when he was wheeled into the boardroom to sign as head coach.

Even more bizarrely, nine days before accepting the top job he’d been hired to coach one of Juve’s youth teams.

It felt like a strange and impulsive decision, but against the backdrop of nine league titles not too many people were questioning it in the way they might were the club not in such a dominant position.

After a pretty disastrous start, Pirlo recovered to win the Italian cup and scrape qualification for the Champions League, but for a club seeking a tenth consecutive title with one of the greatest players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, in its ranks this was not good enough.

Especially as the Bianconeri had to watch former coach Antonio Conte celebrate winning the Scudetto with bitter rivals Inter Milan.

In response, Allegri was brought back, but Ronaldo departed and the club has looked a far cry from the dominant winning machine the manager had created five years before.

But without Juventus dominating the competition, Italian soccer has become something few other top European leagues can claim; unpredictable.

Who’s next?

After Inter’s triumph in the 2020/21 season Conte left along with talisman Romelu Lukaku. The departures effectively dashed hopes a new dynasty could be built on the blue and black side of Milan.

Instead, it was city rivals AC Milan whose exciting blend of youth and experience secured its first title in over a decade the next year (2021/22).

Currently, Napoli possesses a commanding lead in the table and is on course to claim its first championship since Diego Maradona held the trophy aloft in the early 90s.

Not since Italian soccer’s heyday of the 90s and 2000s has there been such a variety of winners.

And, as impressive as Napoli you wouldn’t bank on it establishing a dynasty either, so the chances are this unpredictability will continue.

The strengthening of the competition is not just about Juventus failing to win, well-documented financial issues off the pitch have also made it harder for the club to cherry-pick rival’s best players.

Juventus is simply not in a position to walk in and dismantle Napoli’s team by buying its top goalscorer the way they removed Gonzalo Higuaín in 2016.

This unsurprisingly makes for a more competitive league.

Interestingly this has also resulted in Serie A performing better in Europe. This year Italy has provided more Champions League quarter-finalists than any other nation.

And, should Inter overcome Benfica, there is the guarantee of a first Italian finalist in six years.

Back in 2018, when Juve faced Real Madrid in Cardiff it felt almost inconceivable another Italian team could challenge for Europe’s biggest prize.

But this year three entirely different sides have the chance to do just that.