Juventus, the Vlahovic illusion: a winner only at the till, but a replacement is still missing
No Premier League or LaLiga, the Serb is going to Besiktas on a lucrative salary
Now that he has found a new team, we can finally draw a definitive balance sheet on who Dusan Vlahovic was for Juventus, and what he represented. In the end, it is fair to call him a major disappointment, or at least a big illusion.
Juventus were certainly under an illusion when they signed him from Fiorentina in January 2022 for €70 million plus €10 million in bonuses, while also guaranteeing him a huge salary which, as it increased, would then even reach €12 million a season. By signing a 22-year-old with 108 appearances and 49 goals for Fiorentina to his name, Juventus thought they had brought in a generational striker, one capable of carrying the team and making the difference. That was not the case.
Of course, Vlahovic deserves one mitigating factor: he arrived at one of the worst Juventus sides in the club's 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 changes in the club's hierarchy unlike anything seen before in its 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 reuniting with Italiano, the manager who got the best out of him at Fiorentina and whom he has now found again at Besiktas.
In any case, quite apart from the chaos at Juventus in recent years, it should have been precisely Vlahovic, and a few others, who showed they were champions capable of making the difference anyway, and dragging the team out of the quicksand regardless. And Vlahovic has done that only partially: quite apart from his 68 goals in 168 matches, the No. 9 was often undone by his own nerves and frustrations, and by technical limitations he never managed to improve, particularly his first touch and combination play in tight spaces with his team-mates. Vlahovic, despite being gifted with 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.
Vlahovic's next move also shows he has not become the star 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.
From a contractual point of view, the Belgrade-born 2000 falls absolutely on his feet: in Istanbul he will earn €10 million net per season plus bonuses and a substantial signing-on fee. On that front, he and his entourage are the clear winners. Juventus, by contrast, still have not found Vlahovic's replacement, because Kolo Muani is a mobile striker who likes to drift across the entire front line, not a classic penalty-box centre-forward.
