Juventus shouldn’t consider a move for Marcelo

For the last 6 months there have been rumors circulating that Marcelo is interested in joining his friend Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus.

New reports that he is “certain to leave” Real Madrid have only intensified those rumors. While on the surface this may seem like a great opportunity for Juventus, signing Marcelo could just lead to problems for Juve. Yes, he is the best left back in the world, but when you already have one of the world’s 5 best left backs it shouldn’t exactly be considered an area of need. For Juventus it’s those areas of need that should be the focus this summer.

We’ve seen this season that Juve doesn’t have a reliable center back to play alongside Giorgio Chiellini. They could change that if they managed to sign Matthijs de Ligt this summer, but it will require a pretty massive offer to make that happen. The issues Juve will need to fix this summer don’t stop there.

There has been a larger at Juve this season and it is one that should have been fixed last summer. They lack a third midfielder to play alongside Miralem Pjanic and Blaise Mutuidi who can make an impact in the final third. A player like Marcelo’s teammate, Isco, would be perfect for this role, as would Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. Milinkovic-Savic even showed in Juve’s match against Lazio just how badly they were lacking a midfielder in his mold. Much like the move for de Ligt, acquiring one of these players would require quite a bit of money.

Unfortunately for Juventus, they aren’t Real Madrid, PSG, or one of the big English clubs. They can’t afford to just throw money around all summer in pursuit of whatever players they want without any consequences. To fund a move for Marcelo, Juve would need to sell Sandro and disregard at least one of their 2 areas of actual need.

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On top of that, they would be setting themselves up for disaster in a few years. If they were to sell Sandro to fund the Marcelo move (something his sale might not even entirely fund) then they would be adding a 31 year old left back to a squad that already features a 34 year old Chiellini, a 32 year old Mario Mandzukic, a 34 year old Ronaldo, and 31 year olds Matuidi and Leonardo Bonucci. With Sandro Juventus still has a good 5 years before worrying about his replacement, but Marcelo would give them another position to fill around the same time they have to replace one of the world’s best center backs, the world’s second best player, and starters at center back and central midfielder all in the span of a couple of years.

Yes, Marcelo would be an improvement over any other left back in the world, but the upgrade from an also world class Alex Sandro wouldn’t be nearly enough to make up for the holes that would still be left at other spots in the starting lineup.

If there’s anything Juve should take away from this season it’s that adding world class talent at already strong positions is not enough to make you a true contender for a treble.