Reports of Juventus’ demise were greatly exaggerated

It wasn’t long ago experts would have led you to believe Juventus were dead and buried, but over the last couple of weeks Juventus has proven they’ve still got plenty of life left in them.

Yes, the season got off to a pretty rough start for Juventus, but it seemed like people had a way bigger of a reaction to it than they should have. The tough start to the season came down to a lot of random luck.

Wojciech Szczęsny made a few egregious errors that cost Juventus points in the first match. Then Cristiano Ronaldo left late in the transfer window.

That left Juventus without an identity after disappointingly drawing their first match of the season. The result against Empoli was inexcusable even with everything the club had to deal with, but it wasn’t hard to see why it happened.

In the time since Ronaldo joined Juventus, it has been rare for them to play well without him. Part of that is  your team is going to get worse when you remove a talent like that, but another reason  is because he was the focal point of the attack. He was the identity of Juventus during his tenure and they were always going to need time to discover their new identity after he left. Their schedule didn’t help matters.

After the Empoli defeat, Juventus had to travel to Napoli for a matchup against a club that doesn’t make it easy for them when they’re at their best. Juventus lost in each of their last two trips to Napoli and the two clubs had split their last eight Serie A matches.

This wasn’t exactly a match Juventus should have been expected to win even under normal circumstances and a draw would have been a great result. To come within a Moise Kean mistake of securing a draw should have been seen as encouraging. Instead, the internet continued to shovel dirt on them for losing on the road against one of the league’s best clubs. Then Juventus got some hope.

The first real sign of life came on the trip to Malmo. They trounced the Swedish side in front of their home fans and looked as good as they had all year. I understand that Malmo isn’t exactly the world’s toughest challenge, but when you consider the struggles other big clubs have had in their groups so far, this win should have been a sign Juventus had more to offer than we’d been led to believe.

The fans then collectively lost their minds again when Juventus only secured a point at home against AC Milan. Everybody had already forgotten about how miserable they looked, barely clinging to a Champions League spot, when Milan came to visit back in May because this draw was advertised as a huge disappointment.

Of course we weren’t supposed to be happy with Juventus only securing two points in their first four matches, but since when has a loss at Napoli and a draw against Milan been a sign the sky was falling?

Since then, the team has been everything we could have hoped they’d be. While their wins at Spezia and at home against Sampdoria weren’t exactly the prettiest, they were exactly what we’ve come to expect from Max Allegri’s side.

They got the job done and secured the points they needed. Juventus followed it up with an absolute masterclass against the defending European champions.

It might not have been the prettiest win as Juventus packed in their defense and allowed Chelsea to dominate possession, but the reality is that this win was incredibly impressive. In spite of their lack of possession and the absence of a striker in their starting lineup, Juventus produced most of the match’s best scoring chances. In fact, they probably should have won this match by multiple goals.

Slightly better decision making in the final third and Adrien Rabiot making a competent pass on a breakaway could have easily given them a resounding 3-0 win. Either way, they now sit atop their Champions League group and find themselves in the driver’s seat to at least advance and maybe even win this group.

This season was always going to require some patience after Ronaldo left, but now this squad is finding its identity and new additions like Kean and Manuel Locatelli are quickly finding their place in this squad and Federico Chiesa is fully healthy and in form. It has made a world of difference in the post-Ronaldo era.

Juventus now faces a new set of challenges. Their next four matches include three away trips to Torino, Zenit and Inter and a home match against Roma. I’m not here to guarantee that this four match stretch is going to go well for Juventus. They demonstrated they are capable of taking three points against tough competition, but that doesn’t mean we should be expecting 12 points from the next four matches.

Regardless, can we please not act like the world is ending if Juventus has a tough month of October during a difficult stretch in their schedule?