The following is a guest post from Juan Badillo – You can follow him here on X.
While it is a sign of our times for fans to deal in absolutes while sitting at home typing into the void of the Internet, I have no qualms in declaring Spalletti a coward and not the right coach for Juventus in the long or even medium term.
I hate to start the season on a negative note and I hope I’m proven wrong. The Europa League draw has certainly been kind to Juventus, and the management have provided old Luciano with pretty much everything he asked for, so we’ll see come the end of the season.
Recent times have been tough. I was not the biggest fan of Sarri’s tenure, nor Pirlo’s. Allegri was a misguided attempt at reviving a bygone era, and Motta was a gamble that excited me and made me feel Juventus was pointed in the right direction. However, his subsequent actions and attitude towards players made me realize he was just not up to the task. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a gamble that Juventus needed to take — and hopefully will take again in the future.
Italy’s Merry-Go-Round Problem
We’ve all seen that chart meme of the merry-go-round of (aging) coaches in Serie A, and while it’s funny to a degree, it certainly needs to stop, because Italian teams are so used to playing it safe that people have started taking notice. Meanwhile, as of today, Palladino is out of contract, Italiano is coaching in Turkey, De Zerbi and Maresca are in England, and Farioli is in Portugal.
This is the clearest sign of a mentality that has plagued Italy on every level, and that has inevitably led to the downfall of the league and, consequently, of the national team.
A Familiar Mistake
As a Venezuelan, this is a mistake I’m all too familiar with in our own football culture: focus on the ready-made players and rely on their experience to try to scrape by with results “for the now,” instead of building towards the future. And when those ready-made players just don’t cut it, you’re left without the results “for the now,” while you’ve also sacrificed the future along the way.
When you don’t give youngsters a chance, there comes a time when the players you have right now are no longer available, and those youngsters aren’t ready — and (excuse my French) they shit the bed. Then those big, egotistical coaches excuse themselves by saying they were right not to play them, because they just weren’t good enough to begin with.
The Preseason Evidence
This Juventus preseason was a prime example of exactly that. The number of minutes Openda, Koopmeiners, Arthur, Di Gregorio, Cabal and others got was embarrassing, even while publicly admitting they were no longer part of the project. I understand the need to showcase their talent to warrant a sale, but if anyone did see them play, it most likely deterred any interest, given their pathetic showings.
Meanwhile, we shipped out Puzcka, Daffara and Faticanti, while Owusu, Elimoghale and Licina barely got any minutes. And the few who did play — Oboavwoduo and Durmisi — looked way better than some of our subs, and even some of our starting eleven. Verde should have been there too.
What I’m trying to say is: Spalletti is building a team to “win now,” instead of giving our youngsters a chance to blossom. And when that “win now” team just doesn’t win, he’ll walk, and we’ll be left with an aging squad again, needing to balance the books by selling youngsters, because most teams just don’t want to invest in a “ready-made” player with no resale value.
What Massara and Carnevali Need to Do
I get that Massara and Carnevali arrived when Spalletti was already here, and their job is to build a squad that lets the coach showcase his best football. But there needs to be a compromise, a responsibility towards the future of Juventus — because I’m pretty confident Spalletti won’t be here next season. Maybe he shouldn’t even have been here for the current one, given our failure to qualify for the UCL, but I digress.
Massara and Carnevali need to pressure Spalletti and negotiate: “You can have this player or that player, but you also need to play this one and that one.” Ekhator and Alajbegovic are steps in the right direction — even though the news of Ekhator potentially leaving on loan is a shame, because he has the physique Spalletti claims to need, and while he’s young, he already has two seasons of Serie A behind him. Not exactly an inexperienced youngster. Why do we need to go buy 30-year-old Sorloth for 30 million? Will he really pay off that money with his performances and results, or will we have another David or Openda on our hands come next season? I guess only time will tell.
The Cost of Not Trusting Youth
We as fans need to do better by our youngsters, too. Let them make mistakes — those are the things they need to grow as footballers. I’m old enough to remember Chiellini’s first seasons at Juventus, and thankfully the Internet wasn’t the thing it is today.
And some people will come at my throat and say Soulé is not Yamal and Fagioli is not Pedri, and I get it. But can you really tell me it was good business to invest almost 200 million in Nico Gonzalez, Koopmeiners and Douglas Luiz? Is the Juventus team of now — 200 million poorer, with a wage bill significantly higher — really an improvement on what we had? Maybe they’ll come through this season if all three stay, but the damage is already done.
People need to understand that for every Lamine Yamal, there were a hundred Bojan, Jeffren, Dos Santos, Fati, Munir and Tello. They were allowed to try and fail to establish themselves, and when they didn’t, they were shipped out and the cycle began again. Yamal has made mistakes, and he’ll make more in the future — as will Cubarsí, Fermín and everyone else. But culés protect them, while in Italy the media destroys them, and then people wonder why all the youngsters leave the country to try their luck elsewhere.
The Case for a Youth-Minded Coach
Juventus has arguably the most important youth project in Italy, maybe alongside Empoli, Milan, Fiorentina and Atalanta. And with Pipito’s and Tiozzo’s recent renewals, alongside all the other mercurial talents in our youth teams, we need a coach who looks towards the future. I would love to see Juventus betting on a Palladino, an Aquilani or an Italiano — not because of the “good football vs. bad football” debate, but because of their willingness to bet on the “what if,” and then let the field do the talking.
Some people will say Juventus was never a breeder club, and that there’s no time to develop youngsters at a big club. To that I’d say: today’s football world is not the same as it was 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. We simply don’t have the capacity to compete with the Premier League for proven players once they’ve made a name for themselves, and we’re left with scraps, effectively priced out of the elite competitions.
And on the second point, I’ll just point to Barcelona and back-to-back Champions League winners PSG, to show that you can, in fact, integrate young, talented players alongside big names and get results — big results.
Massara and Carnevali know it’s also a thousand times more sustainable economically. Lower wages and no transfer fees mean we don’t have to settle for mediocre players to plug the many holes in our squad, and can instead focus our investment on real talents who raise the level of our squad while integrating with our own youngsters and other young stars such as Yildiz, Alajbegovic, Ekhator and others.
Also, when you’ve represented a team since you were 10, 12 or 14 years old, as some of them have, you understand what it means to play for Juve. You understand the need to win. You understand what it means to try your best and bleed for the shirt, instead of walking around the field and accepting a defeat. You don’t see Juve as a stepping stone towards a big Premier League move, but as a final destination. A dream come true.
Fino Alla Fine
It’s a matter of fighting until the end — a matter of fino alla fine. A matter of identity. One we so badly lack.
My ones to watch for the future:
Pame, Durmisi, Okolo
Elimoghale★, Pipito★, Corigliano★, Merola, Licina, Oboavwoduo, Savio★, Santa Maria
Owusu, Brancato★, Tiozzo★, Ceppi★, Faticanti, Mazur, Lallana, Marchisio
Rigo★, Modica, Puzcka*, Borasio, Precupanu, Gielen
Rizzo, Verde★, Rocchetti, Ghiotto★, Gil Puche
Radu, Nava, Huli, Mangiapoco, Daffara*
*Doesn’t belong to Juve anymore.
