Mister Allegri has still got it
Massimiliano Allegri — six Serie A titles, two Champions League finals, and seven cup wins (between the Coppa Italia and the Super Cup). Quite the accomplished résumé, yet Allegri has had to live with heavy criticism since his return to Juventus in the summer of 2021. Perhaps that’s why, if his Juventus manage to clinch this season’s scudetto, it would be his greatest achievement yet.
When Juventus let Allegri go in the summer of 2019, it wasn’t for a lack of results. After all, he had delivered them five straight scudetti, seeing off challenges from some great Roma sides and a certain Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli, in addition to two Champions League final appearances. Allegri was a coach tailor made for Juventus — pragmatic, with excellence guaranteed.
But Juventus had felt Allegri provided too much substance and too little style. Andrea Agnelli, the club’s president at the time, had decided Lo Stile Juve was out of fashion, instead deeming a fascinating brand of football a necessity for the most elite of clubs.
In spite of a quarter finals exit in the Champions League at the hands of Erik Ten Hag’s impressive Ajax team (the same team that demolished Real Madrid 4–1 at the Bernabéu and went within seconds of making the final), Allegri departed Juventus with his reputation at a remarkable high. This was a man coveted by Europe’s elite.
And it doesn’t get more elite than Real Madrid. The Spanish giants had approached Allegri a year before his departure, in the summer of 2018, to take over after Zinedine Zidane’s abrupt exit, but Allegri chose to politely turn them down out of respect to Juventus. A similar scenario would unfold in 2021, when following a two year hiatus, Allegri went back on a signed contract with Real Madrid, after receiving a phone call from his old friend, Agnelli, urging him to return to Continassa to help save the club.
Whether out of loyalty to a good friend and an organization where he had fit in perfectly, or out of fear of stepping out of his comfort zone, Allegri decided to turn down Europe’s most premier club in favor of his Old Lady. His return wasn’t without its perks, as a four year contract and the highest head coach salary in Italy ensured his job security amidst a period of great instability at Juventus.
If he hadn’t known it beforehand, Allegri would soon discover that it was a much weaker club he had returned to. General manager Beppe Marrotta, to many one of the main catalysts behind Juve’s revival, had departed to fierce rivals Internazionale in Allegri’s last season, and Juventus were left financially crippled due to a series of bad decisions, not least the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo at figures beyond their reach. That, mixed with the Covid-19 crisis, meant the club was on the verge of collapse.
Allegri was still expected to bring back the good times. After all, Juve’s squad still seemed stronger than everyone else in Italy bar scudetto holders Inter, who were facing financial troubles of their own, and had crucially lost their head coach Antonio Conte, the maestro behind their scudetto winning orchestra. Perhaps that’s why, when Juventus managed only a fourth place finish in Serie A, Allegri was branded the culprit behind their demise. An exit at the hands of Villarreal in the Champions League’s round of 16 did not help him, despite the fact that Villarreal were the Europa League holders and went on to make it to the Champions League semi finals, knocking out Bayern Munich in the process.
Suddenly, what was once deemed tactical intelligence was looked upon as outdated and cowardly, and what was hailed as pragmatic was instead called defensive and boring. It was 2022, not 2017, and football at the most elite level seemed, to many, to have passed Allegri by. After all, not many head coaches manage to stay at the top for more than a decade anyway.
The following season, 2022/2023, would bring no joy either. A torrid time in Europe further hurt Allegri’s reputation, but it was off the pitch where things went really south. The entire Juventus board, led by Agnelli and Pavel Nedvěd, resigned in November and left Allegri as the only man standing to defend the club from mistakes he had no hand in. Yet he remained composed and dignified in the face of financial irregularities, points docked (twice), and remained the only saving grace at a club where everyone else had jumped ship.
If anything, that should have enhanced his reputation. A dependable man in times of crisis, Allegri had demonstrated class and leadership to go with his glittering CV. So then, how could anyone have doubted him coming into this season?
The summer brought with it changes in staff, with Francesco Magnanelli, his former player at Sassuolo, and a man who happened to be also coached and inspired by the now in fashion Roberto De Zerbi, joining to add a modern twist to Allegri’s methods. The first few weeks produced mostly a new direction, with high pressing and modern fullbacks tucking into midfield, until an uncharacteristic collapse against, out of all teams, Sassuolo.
Since then, it was mostly back to ‘corto muso’, or ‘winning by a nose’, a phrase coined by Allegri and now a part of the Italian dictionary. The 1–0s returned, and the goals dried up for the promising duo of Federico Chiesa and Dušan Vlahović. But most importantly, Juventus kept adding points to the table. Lecce, Torino, Milan, Verona, Fiorentina, and Cagliari were all brushed aside. Despite long term suspensions to midfielders Paul Pogba and Nicolò Fagioli, despite a squad clearly weaker to its Milanese counter parts, and despite enduring fierce criticism for the best part of two years, Mister Allegri still managed to turn a Juventus team created on a budget (with only a single summer addition in the name of Timothy Weah) into title contenders.
Of course, we’re only 13 matchdays into the season, and there’s still plenty of football to be played, but if the Derby d’Italia last Sunday demonstrated anything, it is that, going head to head, there isn’t much to separate Juventus and last year’s Champions League finalists, Inter. With no European commitments to sap much needed energy from Allegri’s men, and a lot more time dedicated to the training pitch, one wouldn’t bet against them going all the way.
Against the league leaders, Juve looked solid and tactically astute, but so did Inter themselves. Chiesa and Vlahović combined to give Juve the lead, but Inter replied almost instantly through their own highly rated strike duo of Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram. By the end, both sides seemed happy to share the points, and so Inter’s lead remains at two points.
Having already defeated Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and drawn to Atalanta and Inter, Juve will host Napoli in less than two weeks, and then Roma before the end of the year, with trips to Monza, Frosinone, and Genoa sandwiched in between. Could they manage full points until then? It’s no easy task. But then again, nothing about Allegri’s tenure has been easy. Yet he has taken Juventus this far, throughout financial turmoil, overhaul on a board level, point deductions, and very few signings.
Throughout his career, Allegri has proven himself as a man with a knack for finding the right balance. Whether by balancing Milan’s aging stars and mercurial front line with the energetic legs of Kevin-Prince Boateng and tactical mastery of Mark van Bommel, or by adding more possession and technical guile to the machine that was Conte’s Juventus, en route to two Champions League finals, Allegri has always managed to strike the right chord.
Now, if he manages to get it right once again, and balance ‘corto muso’ with Vlahović and Chiesa regularly finding the net, then Juventus could find themselves fighting for the unlikeliest of scudetti. They say sequels are never good apart from The Godfather II, but could Allegri manage to dispel that myth? Don’t bet against it.
