Entering history or being crushed by it: the Juventus paradox

🚨 Yet another mistake by Michele Di Gregorio, committed during the friendly match between Juventus and Inter, has once again brought to the forefront the discussions about the inadequacy of the current Juventus goalkeeper. But by broadening the discussion to other players who have worn (or who currently wear) the shirt of the Old Lady, a much wider picture emerges: why do players who performed well elsewhere fail more and more often at Juventus?

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Di Gregorio is only the latest in a long list, which before him included names such as Lois Openda, Johnatan David, Douglas Luiz, Arthur, Koopmeiners or, going further back in time, De Ligt, Diego, Felipe Melo, Salas, Amauri, Tiago, Esnaider or Ian Rush.

What do all these players have in common? The fact that they had built an excellent career — but only up until the moment they landed in Turin. Once wearing the black-and-white shirt, all those promising signs evaporated like snow in the sun, giving way to disappointing performances, when not downright disastrous ones, as in the case of Di Gregorio.

The question to ask is just one: why? Why is it that at Juventus, far more than in any other club in Italy, those who arrive with great ambitions often end up resigning themselves to failure?

In other words, how is it possible that a complete midfielder like Koopmeiners — capable of dragging Atalanta to the Europa League title just one year earlier, and considered by many to be one of the strongest and most versatile midfielders in Europe — can turn, within a few months, into a clumsy player who literally juggles the ball off his own face?

Or what could have happened to Lois Openda, a striker who scores 25 goals per season, to wake up in the body of a footballing ugly duckling, suddenly unable to hit the target even from two meters out? And again, why does the best goalkeeper of the Serie A 2023/24 season now look like an amateur thrown to the wolves, beaten in most cases by the very first shot on goal?

It may seem paradoxical, but to answer this question one must proceed homeopathically, by mentioning all the great champions who have worn the black-and-white shirt. Starting from the captain and symbol, Alessandro Del Piero, and moving on to Buffon, Zidane, Nedved, Thuram, Platini, Trezeguet, Pirlo, and many others (the full list would be far too long).

Many of them went through an initial period of adjustment, not without criticism and doubts about the wisdom of signing them, but all of them managed to bounce back brilliantly and earn their place in the history of Italy’s most glorious club. The reason is simple: it’s a matter of broad shoulders, mentality, and character. Or, if you prefer, of a more intimate “double” part of the male body that sums up all the previous considerations.

Alessandro Del Piero, Public domain image

Except for sensational cases, such as that of Cristiano Ronaldo, when a player arrives at Juventus he immediately realizes the difference in importance between his new home and his former club. On their first day, newcomers are immediately taken to the stadium and the museum, where they are confronted with the weight of history.

The tour continues through the corridors of the headquarters, where one is overwhelmed by the aura of the portraits of Boniperti, Sivori, Scirea, Zoff, Del Piero, or even CR7 himself, immortalized while lifting trophies. Motivational quotes spoken by legends of Juventus’ past are displayed, and in the midst of this atmosphere of greatness that permeates every inch, there are only two possible reactions: feeling proud and motivated to have become part of the history of a glorious club, or feeling inadequate and frightened by the weight of the past.

And all of this, whether one likes it or not, happens only at Juventus in Italy. At the Lady’s home, they don’t celebrate two or three league titles won thirty years apart. They don’t still mythologize the only period of victories that dates back six or seven decades, a Coppa Italia won by accident, or a Conference League brought home after a hundred years of football irrelevance. Instead, they rest their roots on almost a century and a half of success, champions, and triumphs — in Italy, in Europe, and around the world.

_{From left to right: Tardelli, Cabrini, Platini and Brio, former Juventus stars from the 1980s. Public domain image}

Football is made of cycles, more or less fortunate, more or less successful — but while other clubs can count at most a couple of them, Juventus has always been, and will always be, part of the history of triumphs. Those who win today know that sooner or later the party will end and they will return to the vast cauldron of the ‘others’, while the black-and-white will continue to shine forever.

Everyone knows it, even those who deny it out of local rivalry, reacting to their ‘inferiority complex’ with crude sporting hatred. Luciano Spalletti himself proved it on the day of his presentation, with that selfie taken in front of the Juventus logo. A gesture he never made at any other club — a sort of message to himself: ‘I made it; I can’t go any higher than this.’

Di Gregorio is not the first and will not be the last in a list of failures that will keep growing, at a faster pace than in any other Italian club. After all, even in a race, keeping up with the mediocre is very easy; keeping up with the best is an achievement that only a few can manage.

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