Not All Black and White: European Elimination has Juventus and Spalletti’s Season on the brink. | OneFootball

While Juventus almost salvaged a miraculous turnaround from the smouldering ruins of their self-immolation in Istanbul, two extra time goals from Galatasaray in the return leg meant that for the seventh time in as many attempts the Old Lady have been knocked out of Europe by a team they would reasonably have been expected to beat.

They have not, in fact, won a single knockout tie since 2019, subsequently suffering defeat on each attempt at the hands of Ajax, Lyon, Porto, Villarreal, Benfica (group stage), PSV and now Galatasaray.

This record, and this latest elimination, brings into sharp relief the ever-diminishing stature, on both the domestic and continental stage, of one of Europe’s historical giants. The knives and hysteria surrounding Wednesday’s exit were refracted by the perceived injustice of Lloyd Kelly’s innocuous red card (when the game was only at 1-0) but, nevertheless, whatever heat UEFA and the referee took from the Juve fans and Turin-based media this week, it would still have been minimal compared to the outrage directed at everyone from the players, board, manager and sporting director eight days prior after their 5-2 drubbing in Turkey.

The nature of that defeat, sandwiched by a couple of disappointing league losses, gave the impression of a season rapidly falling apart. Wednesday’s heroic yet ultimately unsuccessful fightback showed that there’s signs of life in the Old Lady yet.

A trip to top-four rivals Roma on Sunday though has the makings of a game that could tip the scales of Juve’s season, with a fine balance between the poles of a proud resurgence or unmitigated failure.

From believers to doubters

As February dawned, it appeared as though Spring had sprung early in Turin. A comprehensive 4-1 victory in Parma on the first of the month signalled the green shoots of the Luciano Spalletti era were taking root, and the faint hopes of a budding title challenge showed signs of blossoming in the months ahead.

Nine wins from fourteen in the league, with just two defeats in twenty matches across all competitions since Spalletti’s appointment in late October had heralded a revival of the Juventini’s fortunes and general demeanour following the dismissal of Igor Tudor.

Less than four weeks later, however, a succession of high profile and demoralising defeats have threatened to completely derail the Bianconeri’s campaign. One draw and four losses across their last five encounters comprising Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the Champions League heading into this week’s crunch clashes had Juve already slipping on the precipice of the abyss, a failed season, the sight of which had been obscured by the deceptive low winter sunshine on the horizon.

A 3-0 cup defeat at the hands of Atalanta initiated the spiral of misfortune for Spalletti’s men, effectively consigning Italy’s most successful club to a second consecutive trophyless season. Even if there existed the faintest of possibilities of a Scudetto charge, what would have been arguably the most miraculous of their 36 titles to date, those distant dreams were soon expunged following dropped points at home to Lazio (in which they required a 96th minute Pierre Kalulu equaliser) and late heartbreak in the Derby d’Italia defeat to runaway leaders Inter.

The darkest hour of an exceedingly long winter was still to come for the team from Piemonte when they stooped to a 5-2 humiliation away to Galatasaray. The meek and somewhat comic elements of the defeat along with the goals conceded sounded major alarm bells for the Bianconeri. It was the type of result that called into question not just the manager or the players but the entire enterprise and the structure of the club. The front page of Turin-based newspaper Tuttosport on Thursday declared that Juve must be “remade” in the wake of their bombardment on the Bosphorus.

The hits kept coming as the Vecchia Signora suffered yet more ignominy, this time on home turf when they were turned over 2-0 by Cesc Fabregas’ Como on Saturday, now a prime rival with them for fourth position – emblematic of the seismic shift in stature of both clubs over the past half decade.

Corriere dello Sport displayed an image of a pained-looking Kenan Yildiz raising both arms apologetically to the fans at full-time last Saturday – the Turkish wonderkid being one of only two players spared the whistles of a baying curva at the Allianz Stadium (the other being Alvaro Morata, the former Juve fan favourite now at Como). The accompanying headline declared the Bianconeri “unrecognisable” – perhaps in equal measure a comment on the special edition, horizontally striped, ‘retro’ jerseys they wore that made them look more like fishermen or old-timey prisoners, as much as a reflection of the performance.

This defeat to Como, coming as it did in somewhat shambolic fashion, allowed Cesc’s Lakesiders – as well as Atalanta – to climb to within one point of Juve in fifth, simultaneously extending the gap to Napoli and Roma in the Champions League spots to four points. Spalletti’s side travel to the capital to face Gian Piero Gasperini’s Giallorossi on Sunday in what is now a huge game for the fate of the club’s campaign, especially off the back of yet another painful European exit.

Institutional decline

Ever since being eliminated by a quartet of Cristiano Ronaldo goals in the last eight of the 2018 Champions League, and the subsequent signing of the Portuguese *insert own superlative or insult here to taste*, Juventus have been ritually on the receiving end of broadly humiliating Champions League exits, as listed earlier.

Despite the growing financial disparities between Juve and Europe’s moneyed elite, the fact they have consistently been dumped out by teams they would be heavy favourites to beat is much more reflective of the cultural decay that has set in over the past decade.

Their transfer business over the last two summers is a particularly indicative representation of the mismanagement that has mired the club outside its customary spot at the apex of Italian football. In the summer of 2024, they hired Cristiano Giuntoli as Sporting Director, based largely off his role in helping construct the Napoli squad that brought a first Scudetto to the Neapolitans since the days of Maradona (with Spalletti as coach, incidentally). Giuntoli only lasted a year in Turin, removed from his post after a financially ruinous and sportingly unsuccessful set of transfer dealings.

The marquee signings of Teun Koopmeiners, Nicolas Gonzalez and Douglas Luiz all failed to impress in their inaugural season in Piemonte, having been brought in for close to a combined €150 million. Gonzalez and Luiz were loaned out at the start of this season, while the acquisition of Lloyd Kelly has never been seen as the right ‘fit’ amongst the Bianconeri fanbase. This is compounded by the fact that, in that window, Juve let Dean Huijsen go to Bournemouth, only for him to be sold to Real Madrid a year later. Meanwhile, other outgoings have flourished elsewhere, with Matìas Soulè looking like one of the league’s best young creative prospects at Roma and Moise Kean having his best ever season in front of goal last year following his move to Fiorentina.

Giuntoli’s departure, however, did not solve the general pattern of Juve’s misfiring transfer strategy, with his replacement Damien Commolli – formerly of Liverpool and Toulouse – coming under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Summer signings Edon Zhegrova, Jonathan David and Lois Openda have failed to ignite in black and white shirts, while full-back Joao Maria was loaned out to Bologna in January just months after being brought in from Porto.

The recent run of poor results and especially the debacle in Istanbul have brought these issues into harsher light as the Juventus hardcore grow increasingly disaffected with the (mis)management of the club and a stasis which threatens to morph into a backwards slide as upwardly mobile clubs like Como and Atalanta threaten to overtake the stumbling giants in the race for Europe.

As the pressure mounts on Spalletti, Commolli and just about everybody at Juve, another demoralising European elimination will only highlight the extent of the club’s withering stature and institutional entropy. If the alarm that was sounded in Turkey served as a warning of imminent danger, failing to win in Rome on Sunday has almost signalled the death knells for Juve’s season. It is a game that encapsulates the motto that steered the club through the good times of old: “Winning is not important. Its the only thing that counts.”