Is Cristiano Ronaldo still indispensable for this Juventus?

With the incoming Serie A debut, the situation of the worldclass Portuguese is still uncertain

One thing was clear, after tuesday’s press conference: Allegri is back, and he is here to stay.

With Max that will only have to answer for his results at the end of the season, without interferences from president Agnelli or the new CEO Maurizio Arrivabene, one very important question comes to mind to every Juventus supporter: what will be the role of Cristiano Ronaldo?

Cristiano landed on the 25th of July, and the next day he presented himself to the Juventus Medical Center to undergo the standard tests for the beginning of the season. He was in perfect shape (as always) but it was clear that something was bothering him: not many smiles, a serious look in his face.

The main reason could be found in the role that the Portuguese Legend will have (or won’t ) in the Juventus of the future. For the first time, from his arrival, he is not considered the “cherry on the sundae”, the” gold nugget”. He found out he is not indispensable, not anymore.

When he was first presented in 2018, it was evident that the team would be built around him. Allegri was not in the same position as he is now: he was at his last (we know now) year of a wonderful saga at Juventus, he acted as the company man he is, and he molded the team in the Portuguese star’s image. Everyone would play for him, and if someone had to score, better be him.

When Allegri left, Sarri took the reigns (figure of speech, he never had that kind of power), and his first action was visiting Cristiano Ronaldo on his Yacht, and asking him (getting by the way a No for an answer) to play striker.

Then Pirlo came, and the same script went on and on: Ronaldo and 10 others.

Allegri now is in a position of strenght, that maybe no manager had in Turin since Marcello Lippi in 2001: he can make and destroy, he can choose to put Ronaldo on the bench for 2 consecutive games, and nobody will oppose his decision. And Ronaldo knows that.

It was maybe the first time in history, in which a player, CR7, was put ahead of Juventus. Maybe a sign of times, but La Vecchia Signora clearly didn’t gain from this situation, and neither Ronaldo (except for the €30M per year of his salary). The team scored less than usual, the defenses knew that it would suffice to stop him, and they would greatly damage Juventus’s capability of scoring, and the results in Champions League were not great. Not great.

It is possible that president Agnelli took the Portuguese silence during the last month as insulting, because it was clear that the economic situation was dramatic, and a Juventus without Ronaldo could rebuild much more easily than a Juventus with Ronaldo.

Now we are almost in August, and the time for decisions is out of the window. Also if it was possible to sell him to Psg ( the only team which could afford his salary, given that Mbappe would leave for Real Madrid), a complicated contract as the Portuguese could take as long as one month to be written, and in this time Juventus would be blocked, waiting.

It is quite possible, instead, that we will have an awkward Ronaldo’s last year.

Or maybe, it has been all along.