Juventus Thriving Despite Weak Serie A but for How Long?

There is little doubting the fact that Juventus have once again come to utterly dominate Italian football—the Turin giants being well on their way to lifting a fourth consecutive league title at the end of this season.

The gap between the Bianconeri and the rest of the field has grown consistently wider each year, from pipping Milan to the 2011-12 crown by just four points to finishing a scarcely believable 17 ahead of AS Roma 12 months ago.

Currently enjoying a 14-point lead at the top of Serie A, Juventus have scored more goals (57), conceded on fewer occasions (14) and kept more clean sheets (17). Statistics from WhoScored.com further underline their superiority, with the stats website's figures showing the Old Lady average more shots (16.3), key passes (12.2) and assists (1.3) per game than any other team in the league.

It is not just against domestic opponents they have thrived against, however, with Massimiliano Allegri having also steered his team into the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and many expect them to overcome AS Monaco and advance further still in Europe’s elite club competition.

Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images

Their performances on the continent have seen the club’s standing within UEFA rise sharply, with the governing body’s co-efficient scoring seeing them rank sixth overall in 2014-15. Here too they are leaving Italy’s other club’s trailing in their wake as—despite a superb showing from Serie A sides in the Europa League—La Madama is the only club to crack the top twenty according to the UEFA website.

That Milan, who are seemingly set for a second consecutive campaign without European football, are the next highest ranked side is a damning indictment of the other clubs seeking to establish themselves among the nation’s best.

Things look even more bleak when looking into the financial situation, with Juventus being the only Italian side ranked in the top ten of this year’s Deloitte Money League (h/t The Guardian), which uses publicly available accounts to rank the revenues of the biggest clubs.

Milan are the peninsula’s second-best performers, sitting in 12th place, with Napoli (16) and Inter (17) rounding out the 20 biggest incomes on the continent. It is a troubling situation, and one of which Juventus president Andrea Agnelli is all too aware, as he discussed in a lengthy interview last November.

Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

"It's not even a noble decadence," the 39-year-old told Simon Kuper of ESPN FC. "It's just decadence. Less than 20 years ago, England, Spain and Germany saw Italy as an example. Now they've overtaken us in every way.”

That is clearly true, and there is a feeling that will eventually harm the Old Lady. The growing fear is that it will be impossible for them to retain their best players when Europe's super clubs come calling. Agnelli admitted in that same ESPN FC interview that Serie A “is not a final destination anymore,” but went on to state his belief that stars will remain at the heart of a successful Bianconeri side:

Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images

"Last year everybody was saying that [Paul] Pogba and [Arturo] Vidal were ready to leave Juventus, but they didn't. Our goal is to keep on building our team and Pogba and Vidal are part of this process. This Juventus team is a crop of players that could easily be ranked in the top eight in Europe."

Even Pogba’s agent believes the player is currently in the best possible place for his development, shrugging off talk of potential €100 million bids for the 22-year-old in a recent interview with TuttoSport. “The club doesn’t need the money,” Mino Raiola said (h/t Football Italia). “At this moment the situation at Juve is ideal for Pogba.”

How long that continues to be the case remains open to debate, but eventually, Juventus will need the other Serie A sides to improve, both on and off the field, because only with a healthy and thriving league can they return to being a true European giant.