{"id":1963,"date":"2025-08-04T12:32:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T12:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/?p=1963"},"modified":"2025-08-04T12:32:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T12:32:38","slug":"julys-monthly-juventus-thoughts-money-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/?p=1963","title":{"rendered":"July\u2019s Monthly Juventus Thoughts: Money Grab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"WEe1ix\">We\u2019re finally in the \u201creal\u201d part of summer. You know, the part where players actually been able to go on vacation and everyone (fans included) get a short yet much-needed break from football.<\/p>\n<p id=\"4NGTT5\">While you might frown at my use of the term \u201cmuch-needed break,\u201d I think it\u2019s important for both players <em><strong>and<\/strong><\/em> fans to take a break from the beautiful game sometimes. The football industry \u2014 a term that I unfortunately have to use here \u2014 has become absolutely relentless as FIFA, UEFA, and the powers that be do everything they can to cram as many games onto the calendar as possible.<\/p>\n<p id=\"kAH6Gt\">As a result, we\u2019ve become a bit overloaded by football. <\/p>\n<p id=\"iS7baH\">Personally, I find it refreshing to take a break for a month or so from the game (during the summer) to focus on\/think about other things. Frankly, I become a bit burned out from football when it\u2019s non-stop, 12 months of the year as it is currently trending to become. So, friends, remember that there\u2019s a time for everything and that it\u2019s ok to take a break sometimes.<\/p>\n<p id=\"7fC87g\">Alright, now that we have that <em>\u201cEat, Pray, Love\u201d<\/em> moment out of the way, let\u2019s review last month\u2019s action.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=RRTET4942255984\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"KZHSm9\">Transfers<\/h2>\n<p id=\"jEXtSF\">There was no action on the pitch as Juventus crashed out of the Club World Cup (CWC) after losing 1-0 to Real Madrid in the Round of 16. I wrote about the CWC in last month\u2019s recap; the club earned a cool \u20ac32 million from participating in the competition. There was also little action off the pitch as Juventus was remarkably quiet in the transfer market (we talked about this issue on a recent podcast episode). Here\u2019s a summary of the month\u2019s transfer activity:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li id=\"9C0JSG\">The big news of the month came early in July: Juventus signed Canadian striker Jonathan David on a free transfer (but, as every economist knows, there\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch) from French side Lille.  His transfer fuels the rumors that at least one of Arek Milik, Dusan Vlahovic, or Randal Kolo Muani will not be at the club next season.  Regarding Kolo Muani, talks between Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus are at a bit of a stalemate, though PSG <em><strong>may <\/strong><\/em>agree to a deal soon.<\/li>\n<li id=\"gz2RU6\">Speaking of strikers, it looks like Vlahovic is the most likely of the three aforementioned strikers to leave the club this summer. There are rumors that could even Juventus will terminate his contract and that the Serbian striker will join Max Allegri\u2019s AC Milan, but he also may run out his contract and leave on a free next summer. It\u2019s a sad state of affairs for a player who was supposed to be one of Juve\u2019s most important players for the last few years.<\/li>\n<li id=\"kCM4st\">After being linked with a move to Nottingham Forest, it looks like winger Timothy Weah will join French side Olympique Marseille. Unfortunately, Weah and his agent are not too happy about Juventus\u2019 behavior during these negotiations. Based on how the club has conducted itself the last few years off the pitch, I\u2019m honestly not surprised by these comments.<\/li>\n<li id=\"3UA8LX\">There are two transfer rumors that seem to pop up almost every summer. The first is Juventus placing Weston McKennie on the transfer market. It\u2019s the most nonsensical and yet persistent rumor of the last few years. Despite being linked to a departure every summer, McKennie continues to be one of the most consistent and reliable central midfielders in the team. The second is Juventus being interested in Manchester United winger Jadon Sancho. It\u2019s unlikely that anything concrete will come of this, but we\u2019ll keep an eye on this one for you.<\/li>\n<li id=\"7VWFNE\">While one winger might be joining, another might be leaving. Atalanta and a few clubs in Saudi Arabia are interested in signing Nico Gonz\u00e1lez. For Atalanta, much depends on if Inter successfully sign their Nigerian striker Ademola Lookman. At the moment, those negotiations are at a stalemate.<\/li>\n<li id=\"icEQNk\">Off the pitch, Juventus confirmed that <s>Bond-villain lookalike<\/s> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.juventus.com\/en\/news\/articles\/francois-modesto-is-juventus-new-technical-director\">Fran\u00e7ois Modesto is the club\u2019s new technical director<\/a>. He was previously the sporting director of recently-relegated Monza from the summer of 2022 till the end of last year. Meanwhile, former Juventus head of scouting Matteo Tognozzi is reportedly close to becoming the club\u2019s new sporting director. He would replace Cristiano Giuntoli.<\/li>\n<li id=\"KzhFCm\">In a flurry of activity, Juventus announced that Federico Gatti has extended his contract through 2030, we have signed Francisco Concei\u00e7\u00e3o on a permanent deal from Porto (also through 2030) for a hefty \u20ac30.4 million, and sold Samuel Mbangula to Werder Bremen for \u20ac10 million plus another potential \u20ac2 million in bonuses.<\/li>\n<li id=\"ZysVys\">In one of the more bizarre transfers in recent Juventus history, the club sold promising full back Alberto Costa to Porto for \u20ac15 million, a mere six months after signing him, and purchased attacking fullback\/wingback Jo\u00e3o M\u00e1rio for \u20ac11.4 million, also from Porto. Just when Costa seemed to be settling in well in Turin, off he goes back to Portugal.<\/li>\n<li id=\"Rc3R4G\">\nDouglas Luiz was absent from the start of Juventus\u2019 preseason training sessions and will likely be sold to a club in the Premier League.<\/li>\n<li id=\"ztJJAk\">Speaking of the Premier League, the <em>Bianconeri <\/em>reportedly rejected an offer from Chelsea of around \u20ac70 million for Kenan Yildiz. As we all know, Chelsea has a bizarre habit of buying as many forwards as they can and then selling half of them off the next year after barely playing them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"sL4KZj\">Un-creative accounting<\/h2>\n<p id=\"9q7amC\">No matter how much I think about it, I simply do not understand the reason for the Alberto Costa-Jo\u00e3o M\u00e1rio deal. It seems very strange to me to trade a promising fullback who <em><strong>seemed<\/strong><\/em> to have the skills we needed in that position \u2014 physically strong and tall with balanced defensive and offensive skills \u2014 for a fullback who started as a right winger and emphasizes his attacking skills over his defensive ones.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"LWRcsl\"><em>\u201cThe fans can expect an attacking player who enjoys creating chances, providing assists, and scoring some goals if possible. And that\u2019s what I hope to give.\u201d \u2014 Jo\u00e3o M\u00e1rio<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"Ojj8yO\">I know what you\u2019re thinking. Costa has only played a handful of games so the sample size is too small to make a judgment on his skills. This is absolutely true. However, besides his poor performance against Manchester City at the CWC (a game in which the entire team was thoroughly outclassed), he seemed to show signs of at least prioritizing his defensive duties over his offensive ones.<\/p>\n<p id=\"HThceL\">At 21 years of age, he also still has a lot of time to grow (granted, at the moment I do rather have more experienced players rather than \u201cpotential,\u201d so perhaps that is a negative for Costa). Furthermore, as I mentioned above, it\u2019s extremely telling that 25-year-old M\u00e1rio emphasized his attacking abilities over his defensive ones.<\/p>\n<p id=\"dEQjXu\">Now, I know that I\u2019m biased against \u201cmodern\u201d fullbacks: i.e. the ones that attack first and defend later. I admit that for certain teams that simply works the best and yields great results. But Juventus is not that type of team (at least, not now). Perhaps if the Thiago Motta experiment had continued\/succeeded, that could have been the case but even then I don\u2019t think Motta was a coach that wanted fullbacks that relentlessly attacked and occasionally defended.<\/p>\n<p id=\"ES3eNu\">So I\u2019m not really sure what the justification for this move is from a sporting perspective. Unfortunately, it makes even less sense from a financial perspective as shown by the following statement:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"XSPXUD\"><em>\u201cThe aforementioned transactions result in a monetary balance to be received by Juventus &#8211; based on the differential in fixed consideration and some ancillary expenses &#8211; <\/em><em><strong>amounting to ca. \u20ac3 million.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"PCKSzR\">All of that for a mere \u20ac3 million?<\/p>\n<p id=\"thPoxW\">I\u2019m not asking for a superstar defender from this deal. All I want <s>for Christmas<\/s> is a fullback who can defend well, prioritizes defending, and can <em><strong>maybe sometimes<\/strong><\/em> give the team an assist and\/or goal. I was reasonably confident that Costa could provide that but now we\u2019re back to the uncertainty of seeing if a new player can settle in quickly enough and provide the team those skills.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"yOE7dX\">July Highlight<\/h2>\n<p id=\"70tBTJ\">Shout out to Tito from <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.violanation.com\/\">the Viola Nation website<\/a> and Danny for a wonderful interview\/analysis of the rise and fall of Dusan Vlahovic. It was great reading about Vlahovic from a different perspective to help understand what went wrong (and right) for the player in the last five years or so of his career. Make sure to check it out if you haven\u2019t already!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackwhitereadallover.com\/2025\/8\/4\/24477916\/juventus-monthly-thoughts-july-2025-club-world-cup-serie-a-igor-tudor-summer-transfer-rumor-analysis\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re finally in the \u201creal\u201d part of summer. You know, the part where players actually been able to go on vacation and everyone (fans included) get a short yet much-needed break from football. While you might frown at my use of the term \u201cmuch-needed break,\u201d I think it\u2019s important for both players and fans to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-aggiornamenti-serie-a"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matteocoachperformance.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}