Cristiano Ronaldo has made the admission in the past that if it were down to him, he would only play Champions League football. It has felt, at times, like the 36-year-old has tailored his own personal fitness regimen to peak when the knockout stages begin, so it wasn’t entirely surprising to see Andrea Pirlo leave the Portuguese out of the starting XI for a game against Lazio last weekend that was considered pivotal to Juventus’ increasingly slender chances of winning the Serie A title for the 10th season in a row.
Porto were around the corner and, after losing the first leg 2-1 three weeks ago, it was paramount that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner was fresh. Ronaldo has featured in 16 games since the turn of the year, starting and finishing 14 of them. Rather than take things easier as he nears his 40s, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star’s minutes have upped every year in Italy, just as winning the title has got harder and harder. His load management did not sharpen his instincts on Tuesday night. Not for the first time this season, the game passed Ronaldo by, even with Juventus playing more than an hour with a man advantage after Mehdi Taremi picked up a second yellow card for foolishly kicking the ball away.
At the Estadio Dragao, Ronaldo was limited to a single shot from outside the area and should perhaps have had a penalty towards the end. At the Allianz Stadium, he kept sprinting in behind and then stopping. The ball over the top wasn’t coming because Leonardo Bonucci either thought twice about it or Arthur, the €72 million summer signing, referred to as “the rugby player” by Fabio Capello on Sky Italia, decided to pass the ball sideways again.
Juventus rely on their two playmakers in defence and midfield, but neither Bonucci nor Arthur were fully fit. Even then, Bonucci still had a hand in the equaliser from the outstanding Federico Chiesa and Arthur threaded Alvaro Morata through for yet another offside “goal”. Other than that though, Juventus’ chances came from one Juan Cuadrado cross after another. In total, there were 32 from the Colombian and Morata should have buried the first one he curled in. For someone whose enduring athleticism is often encapsulated in his NBA leaps and prowess in the air, Ronaldo was not on the end of them and for the first time in 15 seasons, the competition’s all-time leading scorer failed to find the back of the net in the knockout stages.
Chiesa was excellent on the night but could not push Juventus over the line (Photo: Getty Images)
“Usually, when you have Ronaldo on the pitch you start 1-0 up,” Pirlo said after the game. Lately, it’s been more a case of 1-0 down. “There are times when even he can’t score,” Juventus’ rookie coach continued. “It happens even to champions like him. He did his bit and did everything he could.” Juventus once again lost the first leg on the road, went behind in the first 20 minutes for the sixth time this season, let in another away goal from the penalty spot and hoped Ronaldo would repeat the comeback hat-trick he scored against Atletico Madrid in his first season on the Old Lady’s arm. After that game in 2019, he memorably said: “This is why you signed me.”
But Tuesday’s performance isn’t what Juventus had in mind when they broke the Serie A transfer record to sign him. Chiesa was the one who came closest to emulating the Ronaldo we marvelled at in that Atletico game. His away goal in Porto kept the tie alive and it was the Italy international’s brace that forced the second leg to extra time. He hit the woodwork — as Cuadrado did too — rounding the excellent Agustin Marchesin in the Porto goal only for the warrior-like figure of Pepe, in arguably the best display by any centre-back in European football this season, to apply the pressure and ensure Chiesa struck the post rather than celebrate a career-defining hat-trick.
Chiesa almost stole the headlines but, after he cramped up and got lucky not to see a second yellow from referee Bjorn Kuipers, Porto wrested them back. Sergio Oliveira’s daisy-cutting free kick will haunt Juventus fans for a long time. Pirlo himself would have relished the chance to score in front of a wall that served as no protection to Wojciech Szczesny, whose own imperfect positioning derived from him desperately barking orders to reorganise his defence. Ronaldo jumped, turning his back before Oliveira even connected with the ball and the No 7’s famous hang-time enabled both him and Rabiot to watch the shot go underneath them and sneak in at Szczesny’s post. Capello called it “unforgivable” and while Rabiot instantly redeemed himself with a headed goal, Ronaldo was spent and the game was gone.
So here we are again. Another early exit. More pause for reflection. Juventus have regressed every year since Massimiliano Allegri’s dismissal. The team’s winning margin in Serie A has diminished and now they’re 10 points behind Inter Milan. Favourable draws in the Champions League — Lyon last year, Porto this — have not been capitalised on. Instead, Juventus have made it to March and fallen at the first hurdle. What does Andrea Agnelli do now? Winning the scudetto was not enough to save Allegri or his successor Maurizio Sarri, so speculation around Pirlo’s position is to be expected — if not now, then at the end of the season.
“I spoke to the president straight after the game,” Pirlo said. “We spoke about the future… he didn’t (need to) reassure me because I was already at ease. He told me the project has only just begun.” How much should be read into that remains to be seen. After all, Agnelli initially vowed to continue with Allegri after Ajax beat Juventus in the quarter-finals two seasons ago. Ultimately, the trend since 2019 is easy enough to follow — the coaches change, but the Champions League results remain more or less the same, which would indicate that for all Pirlo’s relative inexperience as a coach, the problems are not exclusively in the dugout.
Scrutiny falls on the executive team. Juventus’ chief football officer Fabio Paratici undoubtedly had a good summer window. It was a return to form, as Chiesa, Morata and Weston McKennie have all been successes. The side still needs work — particularly in midfield — to play a modern mix of possession and pressing, but Juventus are closer in personnel to that style than they were under Sarri and boast a core of talented youngsters, such as Matthijs de Ligt and Dejan Kulusevski, to build around. Promoted for the instrumental role he played in signing Ronaldo, Paratici won’t be judged on that signing’s success or failure alone. He has rebuilt this team three or four times in the last 11 years but this is a delicate moment and his contract is up in the summer.
The move for Ronaldo has added millions to Juventus’ social media following and guaranteed the kind of exposure that has enabled the club to upgrade commercial and sponsorship deals. But the cost of the operation, the pressures it has wrought on squad management and the recent impact of COVID-19 perhaps mean the biggest decision awaiting Agnelli is the choice over Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala, the reigning Serie A MVP, who was missing in August for the second leg against Lyon and has hardly played this season amid all kinds of injury problems. Both are nearing the final 12 months of their contracts and whoever stays will be the face of the team (unless Chiesa makes it his own).
The decision comes down to what Juventus want to be. Dybala is at a stage in his contract when the club could turn a big profit on him, but the market is depressed by the pandemic and, besides, he’s almost a decade younger than Ronaldo and happy in Turin. Isn’t it time to build around him? As great as the Portuguese has been in Serie A, Juventus were more successful before his arrival and the break the club made with Allegri — appointing collective-centric, pressing coaches in his place — begs the question: can that brand of football ever really take off when the supreme individual is on the team?