After almost twenty years in European football, Juan Cuadrado is going home. The Colombian winger — who spent last season at Pisa in Serie A before his contract expired on 30 June — has finalised an agreement with Millonarios, one of Colombia’s most historic clubs, to end his European adventure and begin a new chapter on familiar ground. He is 38 years old. He has earned the homecoming.
The Social Media Farewell — Gratitude, Faith, and a Particular Word for Juventus
The farewell Cuadrado chose to share with the Italian public was published on his Instagram account — a carousel of photographs spanning a career that touched Udinese, Lecce, Fiorentina, Chelsea, Juventus, Atalanta, Inter, and Pisa — accompanied by words that are few, careful, and entirely sincere.
“After almost 20 years in Europe. I don’t know what to write. Simply thank you to every club that allowed me to grow as a player and as a person — especially the Old Lady, where I spent the majority of my career. Thank you Italy, I will always be grateful. Loading all these photos I can realise how good God has been with my life.”
The phrase “especially the Old Lady” is the one that will echo through Turin. Eight seasons at Juventus — from 2015 to 2023 — defined his career more than any other chapter, and he acknowledges it without reservation or diplomatic balance. He chose Juventus as the first-named recipient of his gratitude. He spent the most important years of his career in black and white. And he won there — five Scudetti, four Coppa Italias, and two Italian Super Cups across a period that, for all its institutional complications, represented the pinnacle of his professional life.
The Career That Will Be Remembered in Black and White
Eight seasons is not merely a career passage — it is an identity. Cuadrado arrived from Fiorentina in January 2015 and became, over the years, one of the most productive wide players in Serie A — a player whose combination of pace, directness, crossing quality, and competitive intensity made him a permanent fixture in every Juventus team during the club’s domestic dynasty. His penalty-taking, his assists, his big-match contributions, and — most memorably for those who were there — his extraordinary energy in matches that demanded everything.
That he leaves Italian football from Pisa rather than from the Continassa is the small sadness of a career’s final movement. But the gratitude he expresses, and the specificity with which he singles out Juventus above all others, is the fitting conclusion of a relationship that gave both player and club so much. For Lucumí, who cited Cuadrado as a Colombian reference point in his first Juventus interview and whose arrival at the club carries the indirect blessing of the man he most admired wearing the same shirt, there is a pleasing continuity. The Colombian thread at the Allianz Stadium continues — just in black and white.
