Cristiano Ronaldo was supposed to be Juventus’ Champions League saviour. But his brilliance is now holding them back
See what happen after Juventus lost to Lyon in champions League first leg.
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When Juventus splurged £99.2m ($195.5m) on Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018, it was done with one goal in sight: ending their then agonising 22-year wait to lift the Champions League again.
They’ve come close on a number of occasions. Losing finalists in 1997 and 1998, missing out on penalties to AC Milan in 2003, succumbing to the Messi-Suarez-Neymar triumvirate in the final in 2015 and being demolished by Real Madrid in 2017.
So they signed the ultimate Champions League player in Ronaldo, arguably the tournament’s greatest ever player having scored the most goals (128), played the second most games and lifted the trophy more than anyone else in history bar Paco Gento, a Real Madrid legend.
After all, Ronaldo had scored three times over two games – including a 98th-minute winner – to knock out the Old Lady in 2018 and twice in the final the year before
He was quite literally the difference between them winning and losing and simple mathematics suggests that subtracting Ronaldo from Real Madrid and adding him to Juventus would equal that elusive trophy back in Turin.
But it hasn’t worked out that way.
While Ronaldo has continued to do Ronaldo things, the rest of the squad has suffered. Building a team around a 35-year-old is an extreme example of short-sightedness but that’s how desperate Juve have become.
The former Manchester United hero, who celebrated his 1000th game last week, has scored 100 per cent of Juventus’ knockout goals in the Champions League since arriving in Italy and the loss to Lyon on Thursday morning was the first game he has failed to score in this year. It’s the end of February.
And therein lies the problem. There is now an overreliance on Ronaldo to do everything and he is masking the issues woven throughout the rest of the team.
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