Three years ago Juventus gambled on Cristiano Ronaldo lifting them to Champions League glory. Since then they have laboured against underdogs in the knockout stages, losing to Ajax in the last eight in 2019, to Lyon in the last 16 last season and now to Porto. Coincidentally, Juve’s chairman and very own bad ideas machine, Andrea Agnelli, reckons that football would be better if transfers between big sides were a thing of the past.
Agnelli, the chairman of the European Club Association, is one of the main drivers behind reforms that will make the Champions League even more elitist. In his head, football is not about upsets. And in his world, the path to glory is achieved with one of the best examples of big-club excess: betting everything on a superannuated superstar whose ageing legs make it impossible for Juve to usher in a more expansive style of play under their inexperienced manager, Andrea Pirlo.
