Italian newspapers are preparing their obituary-style leaders. Players' agents are already looking round to see what the market has to offer their talented clients by way of alternative employment next year. The club's accountants are counting the losses in millions of dollars and warning that next summer's transfer activity will be severely curtailed.
The gloom and doom is perhaps premature but, by tomorrow night, there may be many willing to suggest that Juventus Football Club has come to the end of a recent, glorious and winning cycle. The "Old Lady" of Italian soccer goes into tomorrow night's final round of Champions League qualifying games in a situation similar to last year when the Turin club needed not only to beat Manchester United (duly done, 1-0), but also hope for a helping hand from the tie between Greek champions Olympiakos and Rosenborg (a fortuitous last gasp 2-2 draw) in order to qualify for the quarter-finals.
At first glance, it might seem that, this time, the task facing Juventus is less complicated. They must win their own home game against Rosenborg and then trust that Basque pride will inspire Athletic Bilbao to beat Turkish side Galatasaray at home. One says Basque pride because pride is all there is at stake for Bilbao, the only side certain not to qualify since a suspiciously even group is jointly led by Rosenborg and Galatasaray on eight points, with Juventus three behind on five and Bilbao out of the hunt on three points.
The closely matched nature of the group means that none of the three contenders can stop to make percentage calculations but must go all-out for a win since that is the only result guaranteed to get them into the quarter-finals even if, depending on how things go in the other game, a draw for Rosenborg in Turin or a draw for Galatasaray in Bilbao could yet be enough to win the Group.
Nothing speaks more eloquently in soccer analysis than results and they have been telling us for much of this autumn that Juventus are simply not the side of the last four seasons. Remember, those last four years were a period when Juventus not only won three out of four Italian league titles but when it also reached four consecutive European Cup finals, losing the UEFA Cup final to Parma in 1995, winning the European Cup against Ajax in 1996, but losing out to Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid in the last two European Cup finals.
Clear signs of a Juventus crisis have come not only in five consecutive Champions League draws (three years ago, Juventus would have cruised through a Group containing Rosenborg, Athletic Bilbao and Galatasaray), but also in a miserable month of Serie A soccer. On Sunday, Juventus were beaten 1-0 at home by Lazio to continue a negative run which had seen them lose 3-0 to Bologna 10 days ago and then 2-0 to AS Roma two weeks before that. All in all, Juventus have picked up only two draws in their last five Serie A games.
Club coach Marcello Lippi, perhaps the single most important element in the success story of the last four seasons, continues to believe in his side, but starting tomorrow night and continuing with a clash away to current Italian league leaders Fiorentina on Sunday, his team had better start proving the point.
Until Juventus do start winning again, a number of questions will continue to be asked. For example, how will the team adequately compensate for Alessandro del Piero's absence? So far, coach Lippi has attempted to cover by pushing French playmaker Zinedine Zidane forward to play alongside Filippo Inzaghi up front, bringing in another player to cover for Zidane in midfield. This experiment has largely failed and for the good reason that, try as he may, Zidane is no striker, while if he plays up front, he tends to be much less influential than if he were to stick to his normal freeranging midfield, playmaking role. Against Rosenborg tomorrow night, Lippi may opt to replace del Piero with either of the reserve strikers, Uruguyan Daniel Fonseca or Nicola Amoruso.
Perhaps an even bigger question needs to be answered by Juventus in this week's games against Rosenborg and Fiorentina. Namely, is there the old hunger, the old fire in the Juventus soul? In past years, Juventus had the habit of clearing out their dressing-room, even offloading famous names such as Roberto Baggio, Gianluca Vialli, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Christian Vieri, so as to bring in fresh talent, hungry for success.
This summer, Juventus opted to make a minimum of changes to their squad. Could it be that players like Didier Deschamps, Ciro Ferrara, Antonio Conte, Gianluca Pessotto, even Zidane, simply do not have that winning fire in their bellies any more? For answers, tune in to Turin tomorrow night and to Florence next Sunday.
