Juventus’s epochal 4-0 defeat at home against Atalanta is not solely the responsibility of Thiago Motta, although in the aftermath, he did everything to worsen the already dire situation—both his own and the team’s—by trying to minimize the impact of a devastating knockout. We have written about the responsibilities of the Italian-Brazilian coach, both recently and after other defeats that have marked Juventus’s season, from the Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia to the Champions League elimination, culminating in the ‘shameful’ evening where Empoli’s reserves knocked the Bianconeri out of the Coppa Italia, defeating them on penalties (as well as ‘on points’ on the field) at their home.
IT’S NOT JUST MOTTA’S FAULT – Here, however, we want to emphasize that Motta is not the only one responsible for yesterday’s defeat, nor for the fluctuating performance of Juventus’s entire season. The team’s sole objective now is to secure fourth place, a goal that, if not achieved, would lead to a sporting and financial disaster.
ELKANN’S RESPONSIBILITIES – Starting from the very top, in this difficult moment, the ownership cannot be exempt from criticism and must take responsibility. To fix the accounts and image after the capital gains case and the one-year exclusion from European competitions, John Elkann entrusted the two top roles of the club to Gianluca Ferrero (president) and Maurizio Scanavino (CEO). While this choice might have made sense in a moment of emergency, now the need to go further, to change, is evident because the entire environment (sporting director, coach, team, and fans) does not need two respected professionals in other fields who have nothing to do with football. The Juventus world now needs faces they can recognize and profiles who have lived and breathed football since childhood.
The other major mistake by the ownership was to give too much power in the sporting area to Cristiano Giuntoli, without the presence of figures with whom he can dialogue and compare notes. And here we move directly to Giuntoli’s responsibilities. It must be clear that the Giuntoli-Motta duo is the ticket on which the Juventus 2024-25 project is based, and in perspective, the project for the next two seasons.
AND GIUNTOLI’S RESPONSIBILITIES – Consequently, if Motta were to be removed from Juventus (during this season or at the end of the season), the judgment on his work could not be separated from that of Giuntoli. Giuntoli is the sporting director who strongly wanted Motta and who was the main architect of Allegri’s departure. Giuntoli is the executive who built the current Juventus squad, with his choices and with the endorsement of Motta’s preferences. The link between Giuntoli and Motta is difficult to break. That being said, it is possible, and we have seen it many times in the history and news of football, that an executive can retrace his steps and change his mind about a coach with whom he thought he could carry out a longer project.
At that point, however, as we also wrote after the defeat against Empoli, the ball would pass into the hands of the ownership, which could even take ‘personal’ responsibility (and we are referring to John Elkann) for choosing the name of the new coach, leaving Giuntoli ‘only’ the management of the transfer market. And in this sense, the need for a club like Juventus to bring in other ‘football’ executives to support Giuntoli would emerge even more clearly.