The former sporting director of Juventus, Cristiano Giuntoli, returns to his Juventus adventure, claiming economic and market successes thanks, at best, to Allegri and Agnelli
It says on the identity card Giuntoli Cristiano born in Florence on 12 February 1972. From today, however, we could also calmly add “known as the Forgetful of Collegno”. Or, at least, devoid of the elegance of remembering the merits of others (many) to add to his own (few). It’s difficult to define him differently after reading the confidences given to the director of Corriere dello Sport Ivan Zazzaroni (congratulations for the scoop): not an interview, but some notes scattered here and there to try to clean up his image as a manager fired by Elkann after two years of living dangerously.
“I’m not looking for controversy, I haven’t had time to work” is the heart of Giuntoli’s outburst, peppered with a series of recriminations that are almost all defective, in the sense that they show little respect for what really happened in his Juventus period. Nothing or almost nothing comes back, starting from that “only one year” (of work) which wipes away what happened before, in the last Allegrian season over which the Juventus people tore their souls apart and which remains in history first for the questionable transfer market in January in support of a team competing with Inter (the famous Alcaraz and Djalo) and then for Allegri’s outrage on the night of the Italian Cup won without his knowledge. In the sense that, evidently, Giuntoli believed that he was not included in the technical project of that year and that he was doing a sort of paid internship at Continassa.
It’s a shame, however, because Allegri owes many of the results he claims in the confessions published while awaiting a proper interview, complete with cross-examination, to Allegri’s last season. For example, Giuntoli says he has “rearranged the accounts: when I arrived they were losing 300 million, now they are at minus 58”. Having said that the reference to the 300 million dates back, in no small way, to -239 on 23/24 (that of the internship) and that the correct starting point is -199.2 on 30 June 2024, it is enough to take a look at Juventus’ balance sheet to understand that the merits of the clean-up should at least be shared with the hated Allegri.
Almost all of the improvement comes, in fact, from the 102 million left as a legacy from the return to the table of the rich Champions League (75.3) and from the qualification for the Club World Cup (27) the result of the work of Max, who in the Europe that counts had also achieved it in the unfortunate year of penalties. The rest are a few cuts to the amount of wages and bonuses (from 202.9 to 190.6 million euros) and, above all, the explosion of capital gains which quadrupled from 22 to 89 million. All useful to also cover the doubling of expenses for various commissions (from 22 to 43) and a very expensive market which on the pitch produced a qualification for the Champions League snatched on a penalty ten minutes from the end on the Venezia pitch.
With a minimal effort of memory, without exaggerating, Giuntoli should also have given a thought to Andrea Agnelli and his vision of investing first in the Next Gen, a pool largely plundered to strengthen the capital gains accounts: Huijsen (13.8 capital gain), Soulé (22.3), Fagioli (13.2), Iling-Junior (12.3) and Barrenechea (5.7). Nothing.
Money used to rebuild from scratch a team that, reduced to the bare bones by the “zero market” of two sessions, had finished third and with the Italian Cup in hand, building a team from fourth place, one point less (71 against 70) and zero titles. Allegri’s team, however, played badly according to popular belief. Maybe, but he scored the same number of goals (1.58 per game) while conceding fewer (0.79 versus 1.01).
Another chapter could be opened on the last self-defense argument (“My players are all starters”). In general this applies to Di Gregorio, Kalulu, the reborn Kelly, Thuram and Conceiçao among those who remained in Turin and to Nico Gonzalez before his injury at Atletico Madrid. It’s better to draw a veil over the rest, remembering the over one hundred million invested in Koopmeiners, benched in sequence by Thiago Motta, Tudor and Spalletti and Douglas Luiz, just over 500 minutes at Nottingham Forest: the two blows that had a negative impact on Giuntoli’s Juventus experience together with the call of Thiago Motta. Chosen by him, paid by Elkann, supported by the Juventus fans.
