Juventus suffer another humiliation as Milan halt their own slump

If a single image could capture how far Juventus’s sights have fallen in this catastrophic campaign, it might be the anguish on Paulo Dybala’s face after he fired wide at the end of their defeat to Milan. There were seconds left to play at Allianz Stadium, too few to believe his team had any chance of rescuing a positive result from a game they were losing 3-0. Dybala was desperate not because he thought Juventus might pinch a draw but because, on the night they dropped out of the top four, one goal would at least prevent them from giving up a head-to-head tie-breaker as well.

Few people could have imagined that we would end up here back in January, after Juventus won 3-1 at San Siro, handing the Rossoneri their first defeat of the campaign. Fewer still were predicting that Juventus could miss out on a Champions League spot last August, when the club took their leap of faith by appointing a rookie manager in Andrea Pirlo.

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The Bianconeri struggled from the outset to match the standards they had set on the way to nine consecutive Serie A titles. There were draws against Crotone, Benevento and Verona before the end of November, and a 3-0 humiliation by Fiorentina in the final game of the year. Still, it was assumed that they would clear the minimum bar of qualifying for Europe’s top club competition.

Only in the last few weeks had that idea been called into question. Juventus lost to Atalanta and drew again with Fiorentina. They trailed, and played abysmally, for 73 minutes away to Udinese, before two late goals from Cristiano Ronaldo stole a win that they did not deserve. Still, they were favourites against Milan. The Rossoneri were trapped in their own downward spiral, beaten five more times since that loss to Juventus, including a 3-0 clobbering from Lazio at the end of last month.

They started cautiously on Sunday, retreating into their half as Federico Chiesa and Juan Cuadrado attacked them down the flanks. Yet the few chances Juventus created stemmed almost entirely from mistakes by Gianluigi Donnarumma. Weeks from the end of his contract, and linked with a transfer to these opponents, the keeper looked skittish, abandoning his goal repeatedly to intervene in situations his defenders already had in hand.

If Giorgio Chiellini had thumped a back-post header into an unguarded net after 30 minutes, the game might have unfolded differently. Instead, the ball flew off course like Juventus’s season. Brahim Díaz seized on a flap by Wojciech Szczesny to conjure a gorgeous goal for Milan on the stroke of half-time. After the break, they won a penalty for a Chiellini handball.

Szczesny denied Franck Kessié from the spot. For many who have watched Juventus dominate this league over past decade it felt like one of those inevitable moments, the inception point in the narrative, when the former champ picks themselves up off the canvas and comes back swinging, finding a way to come out on top at the final bell. “Fino alla fine” had been the well-chosen slogan of a winning era in Turin – quite simply, “Until the end”.

But Juventus are no longer that team. More striking still than the result on Sunday was the fact that, until Dybala’s desperate late swing, Juventus scarcely even raised a counter-punch. Milan should have been vulnerable, Zlatan Ibrahimovic exiting with a knee injury after Kessié’s missed penalty, yet even without a true striker they were theteam who continued to step forward, chasing a knockout blow. They were rewarded with a one-two combo that might just prove decisive in this furious fight for the top four. Ibrahimovic’s replacement, Ante Rebic, found the top corner with a spectacular shot from the edge of the D. Then Fikayo Tomori rose above Chiellini to convert Hakan Calhanoglu’s free-kick.

As Stefano Pioli had phrased it in his pre-game press conference: “The important thing is not to play with lots of attackers but to attack with lots of players.” This was Tomori’s first goal for Milan but a fitting reward for the centre-back, whose commanding performances have dislodged the club captain, Alessio Romagnoli, from his starting role. The Englishman, like so many teammates, had seen his form dip in recent weeks, but there is little doubt Milan are keen to make his loan permanent at the end of the campaign. The question is whether they could afford to. If this goal becomes the difference in the Champions League hunt, he might have paid his own fee.

Nothing is settled yet. Victory brought Milan level with second-placed Atalanta on 72 points, and dropped Juventus to fifth on 69. Napoli are in between on 70. Everything could still change in the remaining three rounds. Milan travel to Atalanta on the final weekend. Juventus host the champions Inter, led by their former boss Conte, this coming Sunday night.

This, though, was an historic result – the first time Milan have won away to Juventus in 10 years. The consequences for both teams could be significant. Champions League qualification was not an expectation for Milan, but to miss out would be crushing after sitting top of the table for months. Qualifying, for the first time in eight seasons, would allow the club to build on foundations laid by Pioli during this pandemic year.

The picture for Juventus is drastically different. Theirs is comfortably the largest wage bill in Serie A, and missing out may necessitate severe cuts. It is hard to imagine Ronaldo staying to play in the Europa League for the final season of his contract at 36 years old. Perhaps him departing would be best for all parties, much though the club have publicly resisted that narrative. He is the league’s leading scorer but managed only two shots on Sunday and did not touch the ball in the Milan box until the 67th minute. Unlike in previous seasons, he has not been able to produce his best in Juventus’s very biggest games.

Fiorentina 2-0 Lazio, Inter 5-1 Sampdoria, Udinese 1-1 Bologna, Spezia 1-4 Napoli, Juventus 0-3 Milan, Roma 5-0 Crotone, Verona 1-1 Torino, Parma 2-5 Atalanta, Benevento 1-3 Cagliari, Genoa 1-2 Sassuolo

Ronaldo is hardly the one who deserves to carry the can for the greater failures of this campaign. His struggles in part reflect those of Pirlo, whose inexperience has been exposed and exploited by better managers. Yet questions ought to be asked of the men who put him in place, too, as well as leading the club into a failed European Super League experiment.

The club’s president, Andrea Agnelli, was accompanied in the stands by his cousin John Elkann, chairman of Exor, the holding company which owns Juventus. His presence was announced by local media before kick-off as a show of unity and support. What happened on Sunday was not just a defeat for Juventus but a humiliation. Both Elkann and Agnelli must confront themselves now with the question of whether the club’s problems run deeper than they had thought.