\n<\/p>\n
With how Juventus went into the international break, seeing the rumor mill turned into overdrive has not been a very surprising development. It\u2019s two weeks to speculate and potentially set things up for Juve\u2019s return to the field next Saturday, March 29, against Genoa \u2014 a game that has already been described as the potential final game for manager Thiago Motta.<\/p>\n
But what about the man who hired him?<\/p>\n
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport\u2019s Giovanni Albanese<\/a>, Juventus\u2019 Champions League future will end up being a huge factor in the job status of Chief Football Officer Cristiano Giuntoli, who has a contract that runs through 2028. If Juve don\u2019t qualify for Europe\u2019s premier club competition, Albanese says, then Giuntoli\u2019s job will certainly be at risk as the club continues to evaluate all options following a 2024-25 season that has not gone according to play for both the man who has constructed this roster and the one in charge of putting together the starting lineup each matchday.<\/p>\n Basically, as Albanese put it in his reporting: \u201cIf Motta is at risk today due to an understandable reflection by the management, it seems equally clear that Giuntoli \u2014 head of the sports area \u2014 is under discussion as the person responsible for the project.\u201d<\/p>\n Giuntoli, in his second season with Juve after coming over from Napoli in the summer of 2023, has reportedly had meetings with Motta as well as Juventus\u2019 front office over the course of the past four days to try and open some sort of discussion about how things can potentially change for the better. That has also involved the rumors that Juventus\u2019 game against Genoa next weekend could be the final one Motta coaches in Turin if he does not get a positive result, with former Juve defender Igor Tudor reportedly the top candidate to take over in a caretaker role for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n But what the season has been up to this point has certainly not been what anybody at the club probably envisioned after Giuntoli overhauled so much of the roster last summer.<\/p>\n That could very well be pointed to as one of the biggest issues. It\u2019s hindsight, sure, but it\u2019s also a case of many Juve supporters wondering in the moment of if what he was doing to change so much from last season was simply too tall of a task. There was a lot of money spent \u2014 even with the recent news that Juve had a positive balance sheet for the first half of the 2024-25 fiscal year<\/a>, thanks in large part to the return to the Champions League \u2014 and those big-money signings that Giuntoli shelled out a lot of cash for simply haven\u2019t delivered.<\/p>\n That falls on the man who ended up signing them just as much \u2014 if not more \u2014 than the man who Giuntoli hired to manage the team. As much as we hear about \u201cthe project,\u201d he is the man who has put all of this together, and that means potentially missing out on the Champions League next season after all this expenditure would be a major hinderance to Juventus\u2019 immediate and long-term future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n