On Monday, after a 1-0 defeat away from home Lazio this weekend, juventus Fired manager Igor Tudor. Reportedly, there is no immediate replacement – they are considering both former Italy Bosses Luciano Spalletti and Raffaele Palladino, who took fiorentina Finished sixth last season. Whoever takes charge will become the sixth permanent manager in the last six years.
Juventus represents a case study in what not to do, but it also serves as a reminder that poor decisions in the recent past affect the present and future, reducing the ability of replacements to make optimal choices. Their next managerial move will determine whether they descend further into their cycle, or whether they finally begin to rid themselves of the poison that has built up in their system over the years.
Tudor paid the price not only for his mistakes, but also for the mistakes of those who came before him. Not just coaches, everyone from sporting directors to chief executives is responsible to varying degrees. Of course, there are many players.
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Tudor took over as interim boss from Thiago Motta in March last year. (The latter was a terrible choice that stuck around for too long.) They were one point out of the Champions League places. serie a And their aim was to get them into the top four, which they did (by one point).
Meanwhile, the club was going to figure out what to do for 2025–26 – except there was no one to “figure out” because key decision-maker Cristiano Giuntoli was already on his way out of the club on a five-year contract in less than two years. His replacement Damien Comolli took over on 1 June and, with the Club World Cup looming, he opted to remain with the Tudors for the following season.
The thinking in retaining Tudor was that there was not enough time – five or six weeks – to identify a long-term coach before the 2025–26 season, and they did not want to rush into a commitment. Hindsight is 20/20, but apparently that was the wrong decision because it’s almost Halloween and they have five or six days (not weeks) to find someone.
Comolli and his recruitment team got the chance to work on summer transfers, but even here their hands were tied to some extent. if you see transfermarktYou’ll notice that Juventus spent €137 million ($160 million), which sounds like a lot until you realize that €105.8 million ($123 million) was to make permanent moves for players who were already at the club on loan: Chico Conceição, Pierre Kalulu, lloyd kelly, Nico Gonzalez (who immediately went on loan to Atlético Madrid) and Michelle Di GregorioIn most cases, the onus was on Juve to make deals permanent, so in reality, there was not much room to work with in the summer. A classic case of the present burdened by the mistakes of the past.
Nevertheless, the club made four signings and here, you have to wonder how much they considered Tudor’s footballing credentials.
wide players Eden Zegrova and joao mario There were only two league starts between them. The other two arrivals were forward free agents. jonathan david (who signed a massive contract that made him the club’s second highest paid player) and Lois Opendathey return? Six United league starts and one goal. It soon became clear that Tudor, a staunch supporter of the 3–4–2–1 system, would only play one center forward at a time and dusan vlahovic With everyone sticking around, there were only so many minutes to share. Considering that their trio of center forwards account for around 20% of Juve’s wage bill, this is terrible resource allocation.
Of course, Tudor’s system also means three central defenders and the team only has five, which is the minimum for any team competing in the Champions League. They make up less than 12% of the wage bill, despite the fact that their numbers on the pitch are three times that of center forwards. Re: resource allocation.
You imagine, Comolli would probably say: “Gab, what do you want me to do? The club has lost more than half a billion euros in the last five seasons. The people who came before me made decisions and commitments, and now I have to deal with the consequences of that.”
And, of course, he would be right. The combination of COVID-19 and short-term thinking led to the shenanigans of accounting games and “buy now, pay later” loan-plus-liability deals that are severely limiting clubs in the here and now. the fact that filip kostic, Danielle Rugani And the fact that Arek Milik (who last played any kind of football in June 2024) is still in the team tells its own story. (Fun facts: arthur He’s still a Juve player, although at least he’s on loan elsewhere, so you’re not reminded of past mistakes every time you see him.)
Then there are those who ran away. Clubs make mistakes all the time when it comes to homegrown players — hey, morgan rogers And cole palmer were on Manchester City, Declan Rice was on chelsea – But Juve have elevated it to the art of absurdity.
In the last 18 months, Juventus let go matias sole, dean huijsen, connie de winter, moise keane And Nicolo Fagioli leaves for a combined fee of less than €85 million; Now his transfer valuation has increased by two and a half times. (None of them, apart from Keane, got a legitimate sustained shot at the first team.) It seems as if they have spent a lot of money on their B-team – Juve Next Gen, who play in the third tier – not as a player development tool, but as a piggy bank to make raids to fill accounting holes elsewhere.
We can talk about sustainability and long-term squad-building, but first we need to recognize that, like pollution, it is always future generations who pay the price of past mistakes. Juve’s recent past is littered with so many blunders that whoever is in charge today is likely to be somewhat narrow-minded.
And it’s this context that makes Juve’s next steps so interesting. They have a legitimate base of young talent that is limited to long-term contracts that you can develop: Kenan Yildiz (20), David (25), Khephren Thuram (24), Conceicao (22), Andrea Cambiaso (25), Kalulu (25) – Maybe even free-agent-to-be Vlahovic, if you get him to stick around at a reasonable price (ie, at a price much lower than his expiring deal). But it will take time to flush out the toxins of past bad decisions from the system and that is why even the idea of considering a 66-year-old like Spalletti (barring his disastrous stint with the national team) would be foolish.
Take your medicine now, suffer a little, learn from the past and your future will be bright.
