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Juventus, the Vlahovic illusion, one winner only at the till, but the replacement is still missing

No Premier League or LaLiga, the Serbian is going to Besiktas on a lucrative salary

Now that he has found a new team, we can finally make a definitive judgement on what Dusan Vlahovic was for Juventus, and what he represented. In the end, it is only fair to call him a major disappointment, or at least a great illusion.

Juventus were certainly under an illusion when, in January 2022, they signed him from Fiorentina for €70 million plus €10 million in bonuses, while also handing him a huge salary which, as it rose, would eventually reach €12 million a season. By signing a 22-year-old who had made 108 appearances and scored 49 goals for Fiorentina, Juventus believed they had landed a generational striker, one capable of carrying the team and making the difference. He was not.

Of course, Vlahovic deserves a mitigating factor: he arrived at one of the worst Juventus sides in history. In four and a half years in the Juventus world, everything has happened: a president (Agnelli) and an entire board swept away by an investigation, a string of executive changes unlike anything previously seen in the club's history (Arrivabene, Cherubini, Giuntoli, Comolli and finally Carnevali and Massara), not to mention the managers. At Juventus, Vlahovic played under Allegri, Motta, Tudor and Spalletti, before now returning to Italiano, the manager who got the best out of him at Fiorentina and whom he has now found again at Besiktas.

Even allowing for the chaos at Juventus in recent years, it was still up to Vlahovic, and a few others, to prove they were champions capable of making the difference regardless and dragging the team out of the quicksand. Vlahovic only did that in part: aside from his 68 goals in 168 matches, the No 9 was often a victim of his own nerves and frustrations, as well as technical limitations he never managed to iron out, particularly in his first touch and in tight combinations with his team-mates. Despite possessing a powerful and accurate shot, Vlahovic leaves Juventus with only one trophy in the cabinet, the 2024 Coppa Italia, won thanks to his goal in the final against Atalanta.
Vlahovic's next move also shows he has not become the champion Juventus had hoped for. For months, if not years, the Serbian had aimed higher, with talk of the Premier League, Arsenal in particular, or Barcelona and Bayern Munich. In the end, none of those clubs came in for him. At 26, and for the next three years, in the central and most important phase of his career, Vlahovic has to settle for the Turkish league. We say that, of course, with the utmost respect for Besiktas and Turkish football, which in this period are richer and more competitive than Italian football. But they are not the Premier League or La Liga, which were Vlahovic's dreams.

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From a contractual point of view, the Belgrade-born 2000 falls absolutely on his feet: in Istanbul he will earn a salary of €10 million net per season plus bonuses and a hefty signing-on fee. On that front, he and his entourage are the clear winners. Juventus, meanwhile, are still yet to find Vlahovic's replacement, because Kolo Muani is a mobile forward who likes to drift across the entire attacking line, not a classic penalty-box centre-forward.