I imagine that the post-match Juventus – Milan, played last night and ended with a shocking 0–3 in favor of the Rossoneri, gave her moments of deafening silence. The silence of the Allianz Stadium, fortunately empty due to the anti-pandemic measures, the silence of the President of Exor, owner of Juventus, John Elkann, the silence of Andrea Pirlo combined with that of the players. As always happens, the victories have fathers and mothers in industrial quantities, the defeats are always, inevitably, orphans.
In these eleven years spent under his presidency there has only been one season that ended, as the new Roma coach José Mourinho would say, with 0 titles. For ten, very long years, his Juventus has raised at least one trophy to the sky every season, this no one can and must forget and this, President, no one can and must take away from him. Even in this annus horribilis his team has won the Italian Super Cup and even has the chance to win another trophy, since they have won the Italian Cup final. Difficult, but possible.
But after all this, now his Juventus needs the Andrea Agnelli from eleven years ago again. The one who, upon entering the Juventus headquarters, still located in Corso Galileo Ferraris, did not even find the reception. There was still the rubble of Calciopoli, which had not yet stopped throwing its devastating debris on the company and she decided to start the reconstruction. His Juventus again needs Andrea Agnelli who brought Giuseppe Marotta to Turin as CEO and Fabio Paratici as Sporting Director and a year later Antonio Conte as coach.
A few days ago Giuseppe Marotta, now CEO of the new Italian champion Inter, defined her as a president manager and a great manager, usually always surrounds himself with great men. Eleven years ago he did it and began an unrepeatable adventure. For everyone. Probably the victories in the series have made her believe that her Juventus cannot be beaten and have made her lose that healthy realism that is a prerogative of her family and a peculiar characteristic of her father Umberto.
Never take the step longer than the leg. The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo and the almost simultaneous departure from the Juventus managerial cadres of Giuseppe Marotta marked a change of course that clashed with the centuries-old history of Juventus. From that moment a new phase began, which certainly brought new titles, but led the company into an impasse from an economic-financial point of view.
President Andrea Agnelli, the time has come to reset everything and start again for a new season, with new plans and interpreters. You renovate your Juventus from the ground up, starting with the management cadres and then going down to the coach and the players. When he decided last summer to entrust the technical guide to Andrea Pirlo, he knew it was a risky option. Economic needs and the will to put Maurizio Sarri at the door, which she did not want, pushed her towards this choice, but after 9 badges 9 consecutive, it was a luxury that was able and wanted to be granted.
The bet was lost and will probably cost his Juventus very dearly. Also on this occasion he went against the history of Juventus, where there is no time to wait for the human and technical nature of the coaches and players to mature. He knows it much better than us, at Juventus you only have to win because "winning is not important, it is the only thing that matters". It takes courage and intellectual honesty to admit that you've made a mistake and try to remedy your mistakes.
You start by communicating to Cristiano Ronaldo that his Juventus adventure is over, if he does not communicate it first. Greetings, thanking them, a dozen players who have not fully understood what it means to wear that shirt. He gives the task of selling them, possibly well and reinvests part of the proceeds for the purchase of players who have the Juve spirit, led by a coach who injects Juventus blood into their veins.
Sorry to underline it, dear President, especially in these days of Nerazzurri celebration, but Antonio Conte, with all his angular character, is the embodiment of the ideal Juventus coach. Now he will have to find another Antonio Conte, another technician who, like him, knows how to make people understand the uniqueness of a story and the weight that this entails. And then, President, Juventus cannot and must not be a club that throws itself headlong into reckless projects, such as the Super League, without having evaluated all, absolutely all, of the consequences.
A club like Juventus should not be the protagonist of farces like the one concerning Luis Suarez's exam for Italian citizenship. What would her father Umberto have told her? And your uncle Gianni? Try to imagine their words and you will probably find the solution. Paradoxically, when you hit the bottom you are calmer, because you can't go further down, but getting back up is still difficult. Seeing Giuseppe Marotta and Antonio Conte's Inter win the Scudetto will have caused her excruciating pain in her heart and enlarged her liver, but that's where we need to start again. A great manager always surrounds himself with great men. Just like eleven years ago.
Article by Stefano Vori
