Having seen both AC Milan and Inter Milan reach the semi-finals of last season’s UEFA Champions League, the latter going on to lose to Manchester City in the Final, there was a bit of a resurgence in quality from Serie A teams.
Juventus weren’t on the same page, however, as they produced an awful group stage campaign, earning only a W1 L5 record despite having been strong in the pre-tournament odds at Match.Center bookmakers to clinch a qualification spot.
On the back of that horror show, the Old Lady slipped down to the UEFA Europa League where they lost in the semi-finals to eventual winners Sevilla. At the end of the season, that failure proved more costly as it was a missed opportunity for them to get back to the UEFA Champions League.
Instead, Juventus have now taken a further step backwards in UEFA’s tier of competitions as their seventh-place finish in Serie A following a points deduction, puts them into the Europa Conference League.
Dominant Era Quickly Forgotten
During a nine-season Scudetto winning streak that started in the 2011/12 season, Juventus were untouchable on the domestic front. In that spell of brilliance, they also reached the UEFA Champions League Final twice, falling to Barcelona in 2015 and Real Madrid two years later.
But Juventus were one of the exciting, dominant forces at the time on the European front. Everything goes through peaks and troughs though. Quickly after their 2017 Champions League Final loss, the decline of Juventus can be clearly tracked.
They bowed out the following two seasons in the Quarter Finals. In the next three seasons they fell at the Round of 16, then from their most recent appearance, couldn’t even get out of the group stage.
Hardship Can Breed Success
Sometimes hardship can be a platform for better when the situation is handled correctly. A place in the UEFA Conference League certainly is not where the Turin giants want to be. But looking back through Juve’s history in the UEFA Champions League, a slightly positive spin can be put on their current standing.
In the 2000/01 and 2001/02 Champions League campaigns, Juventus failed to qualify from the group stage. But that decline was quickly turned around as they reached the 2002/03 Final.
Then their 2015 Final appearance came the season after they had failed to get out of the group stage. Another big instance of success after a fall came when Juve bounced into the 2016/17 Champions League Final having not made it past the Round of 16 the previous season.
So there are clear-ups and downs that Juventus have been through on the UEFA Champions League front. While defeats in Final appearances have stacked up, a lot of their success in getting to the showcase match has been built on the back of a low point from the previous season.
A Longer Way Back?
However, the 2023/24 UEFA Europa Conference League means that Juve has a much longer way back to the top than on any of those previously mentioned occasions. This is the third tier of Europe where they will likely be facing new opposition that they have never before encountered in their long history.
It’s a long road back. Even if they win it, Juventus won’t be rewarded with a place in the UEFA Champions League for doing so. So the competition almost becomes a point of irrelevance for The Old Lady. It may fall into a sacrificial state where the focus is going to be on reclaiming its status in Serie A instead.
Serie A Status
Juventus had a turbulent 2022/23 league campaign, one to forget. They were docked 15 points in January 2023 which was later lifted, and then as part of a revised deal after facing another deduction, they settled for having 10 points taken off them in May.
At the time that they were stripped of those 10 points, it knocked Juventus down from second place in the Serie A standings and left them five points outside the Champions League places. It was ground they couldn’t make up, meaning their late misfire in the UEFA Europa League semis was a bigger blow than it should have been.
So while the history books record their seventh-place finish, and a spot in the UEFA Europa Conference League, the situation of why, isn’t as black and white as their famous shirts. There’s a big caveat on the status because of those missing ten points. Had they kept them in hand, the Old Lady would be playing Champions League football next season.
If they dismiss that spot in the Conference League as nothing more than a distraction and focus instead on keeping their main fresh for the far more important Serie A campaign, there may yet be another ‘Phoenix rising from the ashes’ type story written by The Old Lady.
Success follows dedication and strategy. The era of the early 2000`s are not comparable to now in terms of the power, money, fame, players and management that Juve had at the time. The success post banter post calciopoli was due to the team building strategy of Maraotta backed up by the managament and owners. Now there is nothing. Juve is a burden to John Elkann, he never wanted anything to do with the club, and he has no clue about football. There is no project and the club is going to sell off assets in order to cancel dept and replace them with players like Weah junior, a player who is not good enough for our primavera team. There is no management and the owners wish to keep its hated coach who will take us nowhere and play miserable football in the process. Looking at patterns in the past has no value for Juve going forward. Welcome to banter 101. Hard reality? Yes but it`s the shame shit for a bunch of the other Italian clubs also. Not that is should matter though.