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

Of course, Vlahovic deserves one 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 run of changes in the management structure unlike anything previously seen in the club's history (Arrivabene, Cherubini, Giuntoli, Comolli and finally Carnevali and Massara), not to mention the managers. In Turin, Vlahovic played under Allegri, Motta, Tudor and Spalletti, before finally returning to Italiano, the manager who had got the best out of him at Fiorentina and with whom he has now reunited at Besiktas.

Either way, quite apart from the chaos at Juventus in recent years, it should have been down to Vlahovic, and a few others, to prove they were champions capable of making the difference regardless, and of dragging the team out of the quicksand. And Vlahovic has done that only in part: aside from his 68 goals in 168 matches, the No. 9 has often fallen victim to his own nerves and frustrations, and to technical limitations he was never able to improve, particularly his first touch and in tight combinations with his team-mates. Vlahovic, despite possessing a powerful and accurate shot, leaves Juventus with only one trophy in the cabinet, the 2024 Coppa Italia, won thanks to his goal in the final against Atalanta.

The fact Vlahovic is not the champion the Juventus world had hoped for is also reflected in where the market has taken him. For months, if not years, the Serb had nurtured bigger dreams, with talk of the Premier League, Arsenal in particular, or Barcelona and Bayern Munich. In the end, none of those clubs took him into consideration. At 26, and for the next three years, right in the central and most important phase of his career, Vlahovic has to settle for the Turkish league. We say this, 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.

From a contractual point of view, the Belgrade-born 2000 falls absolutely on his feet: in Istanbul he will earn €7.5 million net per season plus bonuses and a substantial signing-on fee. On that front, he and his entourage have clearly come out on top. Juventus, meanwhile, have still not found Vlahovic's replacement, because Kolo Muani is a mobile forward who likes to drift across the entire attacking line, rather than operate as a classic penalty-box centre-forward.