Juventus FC: Resurrecting the Old Lady

[TheMaestro]

It has been a difficult season for Juventus fans. After a disastrous Champions League campaign that saw them eliminated in the group stage, the club started to put it together in Serie A, winning several games in a row before an abrupt 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Napoli. Since that loss, they're form has returned to solidity, but, off the pitch, the club has found themselves in deep trouble. Their entire board resigned, and soon after, an investigation into their 'financial irregularities' and 'false accounting' with regards to transfers, resulted in the club being docked 15 points.

I've installed an updated databse that includes January transfers and also Juventus' deduction. We'll be starting at the beginning of the season, meaning we've a 15 point gap to close before we can even think about moving off the bottom of the league.

It felt right to make the manager a Juventus legend...

And I went for legendary goalkeeper Gigi Buffon, who spent around 20 seasons at the club. In real life, Buffon continues to play, being back at his first club Parma, and he is still in FM as well, but in this universe, he's decided to finally hang up the boots and save the club that he had been a part of for so long.

Of course, Juve are one of Italy's most decorated clubs, especially across the 21st century. Until the last few seasons, they'd put together a string of Serie A trophies and won the competition season after season. But since then, things haven't been quite as smooth as they were before and they stumbled to a 4th place finish in the last campaign.

As for the club vision, there is a lot of emphasis on profit and finances at the moment, stemming, most likely, from the sketchy financial record of the previous board. The new board seem eager to assert financial stability and ensure that similar issues do not arise again. Of course, this has happened to Juventus before, with the club being relegated to Serie B in the 2006-07 season and the team being stripped of their 2004-05 title.

I understand that a deduction of 15 points is significant for any team, but for the supports to expect nothing more than just to remain in Serie A is a little ridiculous. We should have no worries about relegation whatsoever and should be able to take ourselves off the bottom reasonably quickly. Of course, in real life, the team is 7th, even with the points deduction, so we should expect a lot more of ourselves than just avoiding relegation.​

 

[TheMaestro]

Looking at the squad, and the current Juventus team is still quite decent. A few key players are injured such as Federico Chiesa and Paul Pogba, but the bulk of the rest of the squad is fit and healthy.

CB - Leonardo Bonucci

One of those key players is veteran Italian international Leonardo Bonucci. Him and Giorgio Chiellini were the backbone of several successful Juventus teams, and with the latter having departed to the US, Bonucci remains as the experienced head who is still quality even at 35 years of age.

RW - Angel Di Maria

Recent real-life World Cup winner Angel Di Maria is a perenially underrated player and will be a key attacking outlet for us. He has immense quality and should be an important part of our team this season.

ST - Dusan Vlahovic

At the other end of the age spectrum, Dusan Vlahovic is still just 22 years old and has already established himself as an excellent striker with a keen eye for goal. He has a natural finishing ability that will be vital for us as we'll look to him as our main attacking threat.

We'll line-up with a 4-3-3 DM system with a control possession tactic. Given the players in the side, the team properly suits a slower tempo with a structured passing style more than anything else, so I'm initially going to use that sort of tactic to try and get the best out of what we have available.​

 

[TheMaestro]

We had a limited budget, so I didn't plan on making any major moves in this window.

As for players out, long-time servants Carlo Pinsoglio and Daniele Rugani both depart on permanent deals. Neither were good enough to get playing time for me, so they both leave for small fees, but it was more important to get their wages off our books.

We made just the one signing across the window.

LB - Cristiano Biraghi

That was experienced left-back Cristiano Biraghi from Fiorentina. It's not the most exciting signing by any means, but we lacked depth at left-back and Biraghi is an experienced Serie A player who should be our starting left-back ahead of the ageing Alex Sandro. For a fee of 12.5 million, it should turn out a decent, value for money deal.

So, a quiet window but we've added an important player for depth purposes who should hopefully have a positive impact, and we haven't lost any players of real value.​