Five thousand, four hundred and forty-nine miles west of Turin, Italy, in the 100-degree summer heat of Austin, Texas, I see something I’ve never seen before in this city: multiple Juventus jerseys in a single day. There’s a guy at a downtown coffee shop reading a book, his back against the concrete wall of the bottom floor of a skyscraper; I can’t make out the title of the book, but I can see the highlighter-yellow double-J of the Juve 2018-19 third kits. Hours later walking on a sidewalk, I see a guy on a scooter zoom by in a 2016-17 home kit. 

Five thousand, seven hundred and thirty-four miles east of Turin in Shanghai beneath the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, a three-day pop-up shrine to Juventus offers merchandise, hashtags, and a running reel of footage showing the club’s history. 

Five hundred and twenty miles north of Turin in Amsterdam, a plane takes off for Continassa bearing the world’s most sought-after defender: teenage phenom Matthijs de Ligt.

I imagine this is how Andrea Agnelli imagined the future of the Bianconeri. The Old Lady made new: a new logo, a new talisman, a new face.

On the surface, Juventus are doing everything right; even the recent sales (Moise Kean, maybe Paulo Dybala, maybe João Cancelo) can be explained away into a books-balancing act. The club is receiving more press time than ever. Their social channels are exploding. Their brand and merchandise are disseminating on a global scale. They’ve addressed their problems in the midfield and boast extraordinary squad depth. 

And they’ve got Cristiano Ronaldo. 

But cracks are showing. The 2017-18 version of Juventus, the one before Ronaldo, was in fact better than the first version with the Portuguese superstar. The club has already mortgaged huge assets to finance the 34-year-old’s albatross of a salary, a sort of all-in move that might be explicable if it had put Juventus tangibly ahead of their competitors, even if it had put them tangibly ahead of their own recent runs at the Champions League; the all-in move has done neither of those things. Most of all, the club has shredded any sense of decency and self-respect in its pandering attempts to defend Ronaldo against his accusations. 

All of which, I think, has increasingly distracted from the reality of the situation: Acquiring Cristiano Ronaldo was never about a push for the Champions League. 

Juventus were worse with CR7 than the year before

That the Bianconeri were a better overall team in 2017-18 than 2018-19 shouldn’t be up for debate. Two years ago Juventus battled head-to-head with Napoli in one of the better Serie A races in recent memory, and the competition pushed Max Allegri’s side to near perfection as they hit 95 points. Through the course of the year they scored 86 goals in league play — behind only Lazio’s 89 — while boasting an absolute fortress of a defense, allowing just 24 goals in 38 matches for an astonishing 62-goal differential. 

That year, Juve still relied on Allegri’s not-too-aesthetically-appealing pragmatism, but it was nothing like the broken robot that followed.

Last year the Old Lady accrued 90 points, scored fewer goals (70) and allowed more (30) for a worse differential (30), and they were unwatchable for large stretches of the season. 

If you’re inclined to be optimistic about the inferior numbers, however, you would probably point to one of two things.

First, you could say that Juventus had Serie A wrapped up so early in the year they switched the Fiat to cruise control, focusing more on the Champions League (that obviously didn’t work out for them). Second, you could say that the club and the coach were adjusting to Ronaldo’s arrival, trying to integrate him tactically.

The first point, though, doesn’t align at all with the product on the field. Juventus out-performed their xG on the year and escaped in so many absurd ways it almost defies reason how they remained without a loss until the middle of March. In fact, Juventus won a total of 14 games last year by a one-goal margin, many of those against poor competition (Chievo, Parma, Sassuolo, Empoli, Bologna, Fiorentina). What’s more, they were absolutely wrecked in the Coppa Italia — a competition in which the held back nothing — by Atalanta in the quarterfinals. 

Juventus, in other words, were extremely lucky in their results. That Napoli or anyone else failed to mount a serious challenge was another stroke of fortune for the Old Lady.

The second point is exactly spot-on — that Juventus were adjusting to the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo — and it goes to show how almost unrelated to football the addition of Ronaldo was. 

Juventus signed Ronaldo to a four-year contract, investing over €300 million into a 33-year-old forward between fees and salary. The club has now wasted one of those four years, and Ronaldo is now one year older. Additionally, the club must deal with yet another regime change with Maurizio Sarri taking over for Allegri, a complete tactical overhaul. If Juve fans thought last year was an adjustment period, they better strap in for this campaign. 

Juventus were at best clunky a year ago. They won a single trophy, the same one they’d one seven years prior. They failed to lift the Coppa Italia, and they lost to Ajax in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

Juventus mortgaged their future attack

In 2017-18, eight Juventus players scored five or more goals throughout all competitions. Three players scored in double digits: Paulo Dybala, Gonzalo Higuain, and Mario Mandzukic. Dybala (26) and Higuain (23) nearly combined for 50. 

Last year, only four players scored five or more goals. Three managed double digits (Ronaldo, Dybala, and Mandzukic) but the Argentine and Croatian each scored just 10 while Ronaldo scored 28. Probably most staggering of all are the Serie A goals, and specifically Dybala. In 2017-18 he led the team with 22 in Serie A; last year he scored five. 

Juventus are now in the final stages of sending Moise Kean to Everton. The 19-year-old burst onto the scene last year with six league goals and appearances for the Italian national team, and now the Old Lady is sending him to the Premier League without a buy-back option (Juventus apparently have a first right of refusal option, but Kean is probably gone for good). 

If credible reports are to be believed, Juventus are now in the process of forcing out Dybala, who after everything is still just 25 years old and one of the Old Lady’s most gifted and creative players. Dybala more than anyone suffered from the arrival of Ronaldo, and now it looks like he’s on his way out. In his years at Juventus he has played out of position as a right winger very frequently and then moved to the attic with the arrival of Ronaldo, but he has never complained or attempted to force the issue. 

The hope for this year is that Juventus make quick strides with a roster actually tooled around Ronaldo and a revamped tactical approach under Sarri. By the end of the season the team almost certainly will be better, certainly more suited for Ronaldo. But even with the moves and adjustments, Juve should not and will not be a top favorite for the Champions League. The latest odds show Manchester City, Barcelona, Liverpool, and Real Madrid ahead of Juve, who are tied odds-wise with PSG and Bayern Munich. 

That seems a pretty accurate assessment of things, and if that’s true then it’s another indication that Agnelli and company were and are more concerned with the long-term commercial impact of Ronald rather than an earnest run at the Champions League.

Juventus discarded all self-respect in 2 tweets

When the rape allegations resurfaced in the fall of 2018, Juventus ended a prolonged period of silence with two tweets:

.@Cristiano Ronaldo has shown in recent months his great professionalism and dedication, which is appreciated by everyone at Juventus. 1/1

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) October 4, 2018

The events allegedly dating back to almost 10 years ago do not change this opinion, which is shared by anyone who has come into contact with this great champion. 2/2

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) October 4, 2018

Sent back to back within seconds of each other, the statements go so far beyond what most companies would’ve done in this situation it’s initially incomprehensible. The “great professionalism and dedication” that Ronaldo showed, of course, has nothing to do with whether he did or did not rape Kathryn Mayorga in Las Vegas in 2009. But most offensive of all was the second tweet, proclaiming that “anyone who has come into contact with this great champion” shares the club’s opinion. 

The club neither deleted the comments nor apologized for them. Instead, they’ve doubled down time and time again. Juve’s social media accounts are a collective shrine to No. 7. They actually featured the following Instagram post the exact same day as the tweets:

But when understood from the lens of commercial viability, Juve’s defense of Ronaldo — reprehensible as it was — makes total sense. 

Juve acquired Ronaldo for commercial expansion and influence; this much, to me at least, is now clear. Any threat to his commercial appeal, therefore, is a threat to the €300-plus investment. And unlike other Ronaldo sponsors who distanced themselves from CR7 — like Nike and EA — Juventus wield significantly smaller influence. Ronaldo as an operation, as an economic and commercial force, is greater than Juventus. He has more reach by himself that the entire club does. The same cannot be said for Nike and EA, expansive and influential as both of those entities are. Nike can lean on different sponsors, and EA can slap Messi or Eden Hazard or whomever onto their video games and be just fine. 

Juventus, though, are at the mercy of Ronaldo. 

Sport is not & cannot be an escape from reality

One of the reasons fans love sport is because sport transports fans away from both the difficulties and mundanities of life. That’s part of the reason why many fans are upset or displeased when athletes make moral or political stands; those stands are disruptions to the escapist experience that fans want sport to be. Ronaldo is a perfect study of this expectation and desire.

The reality, of course, is that sports organizations and athletes are flawed to various degrees. Some organizations are extremely and obviously morally corrupt, yet we fans participate all the same. Some are not so obviously morally corrupt but are nevertheless driven by profit.

In Juve’s case, this is a case study of morality when values hinge on profits. 

When Juventus signed Ronaldo, despite all my reservations of him as a person — and this was before the rape case resurfaced — I bought into the line of reasoning that it was an opportunity that management couldn’t pass up; I bought into the line of reasoning that it was an all-in move for the Champions League. I suspect many fans, foolishly though it may seem, believe a club is actively trying to improve their team’s abilities. 

I was duped.

Now, in fact, this seems to me that Ronaldo was a move principally aimed at the commercial expansion of the club, regardless of whether or not it made Juventus better on the pitch (to this point, it has not), regardless of whether or not it meant ousting the future (Kean, Dybala), and regardless of whether or not it meant belittling the serious criminal accusations surrounding the face of the team.

Acquiring Cristiano Ronaldo and defending him to such a degree has forever and historically changed Juventus. Whether the Bianconeri win a Champions League title or not, Ronaldo, as well as Juve’s actions and rhetoric during Ronaldo’s tenure, will be judged, one way or another. 

I don’t know where I stand, or what this means for my specific support for this club. All I know is that the last 12 months have forced me to reexamine what it means to be a fan of a particular team, and I’m left with many more questions than answers.