Juventus Surge to Further Glory Despite Premature Champions League Exit

That should just about do it. Juventus’ 2-1 victory at AC Milan on Saturday night, in one of Serie A’s historically prestigious fixtures, has ended any doubt over the destination of the Scudetto, if there had been any before.

Napoli’s 3-0 win over wooden-spooners Hellas Verona on Sunday afternoon kept the gap between first and second place at six points, but make no mistake, this was Juve’s weekend.

The game was also a further underlining of how the balance of power has moved west over northern Italy in recent years. Alex’s early goal, which gave the Rossoneri the lead and roused the San Siro, only accentuated this, offering brief—and quickly dashed—hope of an exploit to lift a floundering Milan season under Sinisa Mihajlovic.

This is what Juve did under Antonio Conte and have continued to do under Massimiliano Allegri. There may be passages of hope for opponents, but Juve are almost stronger in the final stages. They grind you down and get their way.

The sharpest illustration of that characteristic this season will remain their match with nearest challengers Napoli in February. The Partenopei matched the champions blow for blow and were well worth a point—a result, you felt, that would have suited Allegri just fine. Only substitute Simone Zaza took things into his own hands, scored a fine (if deflected) winner and placed Juve back on top of the table. That saw a reshuffling of the classifica that looks increasingly permanent.

It’s at least some form of comfort in the wake of defeat in that titanic UEFA Champions League last-16 tie with Bayern Munich. Juve were so close to a shock of their own—which it would have been given their slow start in Turin and their diminished resources in the return—before Pep Guardiola’s side overcame them in extra time.

The sort of late agony suffered in at the Allianz Arena can break a team, but Juve have not for a moment since looked like being overwhelmed. They have won three successive Serie A games since their trip to Munich, albeit with varying levels of comfort, and they are nailed on for a fifth straight title. The full extent of their majesty is that since late October, they’ve taken 62 points from a total of 66 available in the league.

This surge back to where they should be is confirmation Juve have continued to develop under Allegri, even if last year’s glorious run to the Champions League final in Berlin couldn’t be matched. The quality of their play in this season’s competition is a huge caveat in this campaign’s relatively early exit and promotes confidence that it could well be a one-off in the Allegri era—the extension of which the man himself said in recent days was a “formality," shared by MSN.

Kerstin Joensson/Associated Press/Associated Press

When assessing Juve’s season overall, though, it’s worth suspending the benefit of hindsight and being completely honest. After all, the opening weeks of the Serie A campaign suggested Juventini might have to lower their expectations to adjust to, at best, a disappointing season or, at worst, a transitional one.

Before they hit that stellar run, the assumption of retaining the title seemed to have given way to prioritising a top-three finish. Chelsea, after all, have shown how a poor start to a championship defence can quickly turn into a fallow season, even with a partial recovery. After losing three of their first six in Serie A—including, crucially, defeats to direct rivals in the shape of Roma and Napoli—Allegri and company were on the expressway to nowhere.

Paul Pogba, the scorer of Saturday night’s winner and sailing into his imperious best just at the right time for France’s UEFA Euro 2016 hopes, looked alarmingly fallible in the season’s opening weeks. It seemed as if the No. 10 shirt, assumed following the departure of Carlos Tevez, was a millstone rather than an inspiration for the relentlessly ambitious and supremely confident player.

If many were deflated by this—and some attempted to use it as evidence of the midfielder’s callowness given his respectable but hardly earth-moving performance in the Berlin final—they weren’t allowing themselves the necessary context. The team’s state of flux was partly caused by Tevez's departure, but the other key pieces who moved on in the summer all played in the area of the pitch where Pogba works: midfield.

No Andrea Pirlo and no Arturo Vidal meant Pogba was required to be a leader all of a sudden, as well as recalibrating his own playing role. This was accentuated by the loss of Claudio Marchisio—Juve’s outstanding player in Berlin—to injury for the bulk of the season’s opening two months.

On Saturday, beside Marchisio again but also with Kwadwo Asamoah—the Ghanaian is accomplished enough but hardly one of Allegri’s first picks—Pogba ruled the roost again. His winner was beautifully taken, but it was his level of involvement that impressed—and not only in the final third. The defensive side to Pogba’s game (the part that needs the most work) was excellent. He made more tackles (five) than anybody else in the Juve side, per WhoScored.com.

Alvaro Morata, another player who suffered in those delicate opening weeks of the season, also played a crucial role. Just over 10 months ago, the Champions League final suggested he would lead Juve into the post-Tevez era before spearheading Spain in the Euros.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that—partly because of Paulo Dybala’s wonderful performances. It seemed highly speculative to say the summer signing from Palermo could adequately replace Tevez, one of the world’s outstanding players last season, but he has achieved the seemingly impossible.

Filippo Venezia/Associated Press/Associated Press

Morata has looked more like himself in recent weeks; seven of his 10 goals and four of his six assists this term have come since the end of January, and he laid on Mario Mandzukic's equaliser against Milan.

Even if history may eventually only remember Bayern’s comeback in Europe, there is justifiable regret in Allegri’s rare slip in withdrawing the striker for the last 20 minutes, removing the player who was causing Guardiola’s team the most discomfort.

There is the sense Morata and Dybala haven’t quite clicked, but Juve won’t want to give up on trying. As speculation mounts that Real Madrid will exercise their €30 million buyback option on their canterano this summer, Juve have even been linked with paying Los Merenegues extra to cancel the option and keep him, per Gazzetta World.

If Morata could be persuaded, there seems little limit to what Juve could become. Alex Sandro has become more and more important after being gradually eased into life in Turin. Against Milan, defender Daniele Rugani—who has had to be patient for his chance—was impressive in place of Giorgio Chiellini, even though the 21-year-old was making just his sixth Serie A start of the season.

So don’t make the mistake of thinking Juve have regressed this season. If anything, they have proved even stronger than we thought.