Grading every Juventus offseason move

Matthijs de Ligt, Cristian Romero, Merih Demiral: A+

There aren’t enough positive things that I can say to illustrate just how monumental these signings are for Juventus. It’s probably why I’ve written so much about a de Ligt signing over the last year.

Last year we saw that the Juventus defense was absolutely lost without Giorgio Chiellini and until this summer they had absolutely no options to replace Chiellini. They also had nobody reliable to play alongside Chiellini and it was a major issue in the Champions League. Now they have a partner for Chiellini in de Ligt and 3 center backs who should all factor heavily into the future of their defense.

Romero is being given another year to develop at Genoa before joining Juventus, which worked out perfectly for everybody involved. Romero will get to start a heavy load of matches this season, which he wouldn’t have gotten at Juventus and now Merih Demiral has a much more clear path to at least getting starts as a rotational player when Chiellini and de Ligt need some matches off.

He has already been impressing the front office at Juventus, which should give fans hope that if Chiellini gets injured at a key point in the season again this year then Demiral could step up.

All three of these center backs are going to be factors for Juve over the next few years and possibly for the next decade. I love everything about these signings and they really helped get rid of my fear of what would happen once Chiellini can no longer carry the defense.