There was a time when a Juventus defeat felt like an emergency.
I can remember outrage. I can remember indignation. I can even remember raging at the screen and the gods for outrageous fortune. Lose a match under Antonio Conte and it felt like an affront to the club’s dignity. Drop points during the peak of the 2010s and the reaction was incredulity. Questions were asked — and feelings were felt — because standards existed. Expectations existed.
Today, after a flat and deeply frustrating defeat to
Genoa earlier in the week, the dominant emotion among many of us does not register as anger. And I’m not even angry about that. It feels like fatigue.
Clubs survive defeats. They survive bad transfer windows. They survive poor managerial appointments. They even survive disappointing seasons. The truly dangerous moment arrives when you have all of them, ganging together and hanging around well past time for leaving. That is when the darkness comes, and you stop believing that the next chapter will be better.
For most of us, belief has never really been a problem.
After Calciopoli, the club suffered. Relegation, stripped titles, player exits — though not all. Yet, I can say that there was still a sense of purpose. Juventus had been humbled, but everyone bought into the mission — we were going to put a man on the moon and get back to Serie A. Games felt like evidence that something powerful was growing.
I think we can say the same was true during the great Max Allegri years. There, even failure happened at a high level. Epic defeats were still wrapped in glory, blazing with honour and pride, with vision and sacrifice measured in the games before.
Losing to Barcelona in Berlin — and I was there, in person, as I travelled 18,000 kilometers (or around 11,000 miles) to scream with pride even in despair — hurt because Juventus belonged on that pitch. Losing to Real Madrid in Cardiff was the same kind of feeling. Those defeats were painful precisely because we expected to compete for the Champions League, not just to simply qualify for it.
In many ways, that period was defined less by domestic ambition than by European obsession. Serie A titles increasingly felt like tickets to the Euro Show. The real games were conquering other countries’ best.
Since then, we have changed direction. Many times. Many coaches. Many philosophies. Questionable transfers, financial turmoil, sporting disappointment, boardroom upheaval, legal battles, and points deductions — all of it has happened.
The problem is that transitions are supposed to end. In 2012, we wanted to be the best in Italy. In 2017, we wanted to be the best in Europe.
In 2026, we aren’t even the best in Genoa on Matchday 9. This one hurts, folks — because of all that has come before.
We’re not a youth project. We’re not a Champions League team. We’re not a big-money club. The defeat against Genoa was not shocking because Juventus lost. It was shocking because it felt familiar, it felt like our level.
Now look, I get it — injuries, unfamiliarity, an odd mix of players and positions all contribute to what happened against Genoa on Wednesday night. But I remember the days when we dealt with adversity by laughing at it, not falling over ourselves. In bad times, Juve stood firm. Principles survived, structure survived, the foundations survived.
What we saw in Genoa is deeper than bad fortune. It may be frailty. And I am genuinely worried that that is seeping into the screens and the stadium. Frailty in our emotional investment. We — I — used to be angry because I believed Juventus should be better. This time, I am resigned to the fact we are not. Already.
Every successful football team ultimately gives us hope. We will tolerate calamity if we can see courage. We will watch Genoa win 2-0 if we believe we are watching the early chapters of something worthy.
But, today, just for today, I will wonder if I am exhausted by the effort it takes to keep believing.
Tomorrow I will pick myself up, talk about a project, the hopes I have that Kenan Yildiz will be the best player in the world and that Juve will decide to be an Italian team that breeds exceptional Italians. I will write something that has more hope — as it springs eternal — but today, this minute, I join (quietly) I suspect many of you who look at this moment (and just this moment) and think how hard it is to recover from indifference.
