Why the Europa League is win or bust for Juventus
As you've probably heard, things aren't exactly rosy at Juventus right now.
They sit ninth in the Serie A table having been deducted 15 points because they were cooking their books for a number of years.
They could be set to be deducted even more points if they're also found guilty of illegal payments to their players.
They were recently thumped by league-leaders SSC Napoli 5-1...and it should've been about 10-1.
They were dumped out of the UEFA Champions League because they quite literally lost to Maccabi Haifa.
Paul Pogba, one of their highest earners, hasn't played a single game of football this season, opting to go skiing over the Christmas period instead of trying to get match fit.
They're generally been quite painful to watch, lacking any semblance of attacking fluidity and/or identity.
So yeah, things haven't been great at Juventus. To say the very least.
Yet, despite all of the aforementioned, La Vecchia Signora still - amazingly - harbour some hope of making their 2022/23 season a successful one.
That hope stems from participation in the Europa League - a competition pretty much every single Juve fan scoffed at being in a few months ago.
With Juve being 12 points adrift of the Serie A top four (and potentially a further 15 adrift in the comings week if they're deducted more points) winning the Europa League is now the only remotely realistic pathway into the UEFA Champions League next season.
And that qualification is an absolute necessity for the footballing and financial future of the club.
Already in an astonishing amount of debt having record over £1bn in losses over the last four financial years, missing out on a revenue stream as lucrative as the Champions League while being faced with those debts and the highest wage bill in Italy (they're currently spending over £100m a year on salaries) would cause somewhat of a full, potentially permanent, financial meltdown of the peninsula's biggest and most historic club.
Such a financial meltdown at this time, when Premier League money means it's already next to impossible for Italian teams to compete, would be catastrophic on the pitch too. Juve would very likely be:
A) Forced to sell star players such as Dusan Vlahovic, Gleison Bremer, Federico Chiesa and co.
B) Never have any hope of being able to replace those players with big names ever again.
It would be the worst possible disaster for Juventus football club at the worst possible time.
So...can they win it you asked?
Can they actually avoid total disaster by winning the Europa League?
Well, we said 'remotely realistic' a few paragraphs back because, at the moment, that's probably all it really is.
Juve do have plenty of talent in their squad. The likes of Chiesa (when fully fit), Vlahovic (when fully fit), Pogba (when fully fit...you're seeing a trend here, right?) etc. can win a game at any level at the drop of hat. And while they haven't been awe-inspiring in attack of late, bar the thumping at the hands of Napoli, Allegri's team have been quite stoic in defence - conceding the second least amount of goals in Serie A and going almost three months without conceding a single goal before Napoli, well, happened.
While he hasn't covered himself in glory throughout this season, Allegri himself has real pedigree in knockout round European football. During his first stint at the club he oversaw a number of memorable Champions League runs, making the final of the competition on two separate occasions.
All of this sounds great, right?
So why is winning the competition only 'remotely realistic'?
Well, in rather unprecedented fashion, the one time Juventus absolutely need to win the Europa League, three of the five top teams in Europe are also in the competition at the exact same time.
Which is just extremely unlucky.
Those three teams are Manchester United, Barcelona and Arsenal (if you're wondering who the other two sides in the top five are, they're Napoli and Man City), and all three of those European heavyweights are currently, to put it bluntly, lightyears ahead of Juventus.
To put a more positive spin on it though, at least one of those three teams will not be in the competition for much longer as Man Utd and Barça are due to face off against one another in the new play-off round, and Arsenal may be so engrossed in a Premier League title race that they simply forget that they're even in the Europa League.
Maybe they just don't show up for their next game and get kicked out of the competition?
Ok maybe that's too positive a spin, let's reign it in a little: Arsenal may field a weakened squad in a Europa League in order to prioritise the league, take their eye off the ball, and get knocked out.
It's possible.
If those things happen and Juve finally find some form - for the first time in a solid three seasons - what's been a disastrous 2022/23 season on and off the pitch for the club can be salvaged. And the future of the club could be too.