Juventus at the turning point: three missions for Motta

In this wonderfully senseless season anything can happen. Napoli, for example: they won the championship early because Conte is there, only to go into crisis because they let Kvara go, who was no longer needed a month ago. Inter is the strongest, most solid, richest, but now they are crashing against closed teams and have no second lines up to par. Milan turned the corner with Conceiçao and entered the future with four forwards, actually, no, it is a chaos worse than before. Como goes straight down to B, but perhaps they can aim for the top of the table.

We can continue on this crazy rollercoaster for a long time. So why be surprised that a week ago Juve was on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Eindhoven, and Thiago Motta at risk of being fired, and today for some he can caress the idea of ​​the Scudetto? Now that Juve can aim for first place seems as exaggerated as the news that Mark Twain received about his death: not only Inter is ahead eight points, easily recoverable in modern football, Napoli and Atalanta should also collapse simultaneously. Always hoping for a continuity that has been unknown until now.

If the championship cannot be the realistic goal, also because falling from up there again would hurt even more, the turning point is suddenly within reach. Goodbye Champions League, and it was a huge waste because it was badly managed by Motta, but the championship, the Italian Cup and the Club World Cup remain to convince the club, team and fans that the season can end with a positive sign. The summer accounts were certainly wrong. The market has offered incomprehensible consequences, such as the almost forty million spent at the last minute for Nico, but who could have thought that Koopmeiners' tired twin would show up? Then the performance of Douglas Luiz is inexplicable, who made a good impression at Aston Villa and here is only injured, or moves at two an hour and never plays as a director, at most an attacking midfielder far from the area (something that Motta doesn't need). But wasn't the Premier League training?

Another mistake, understandable given that the atmosphere had to be charged, was to let people think that they could win right away. Not heresy. Trapattoni, Lippi and Conte succeeded at the first attempt, but Motta's football is less immediate, more cerebral, and certainly more ideological than that of his predecessors. He needs time. What is surprising is the inconsistency of the game rather than the results: Juve started with a dominant and offensive attitude, they retreated trying scientifically to expose their rivals to strike on the counterattack, finally they wandered in search of a still confused identity. It is understood that they do not want to lose the ball, but they do not know how to transform all this exhausting work into opportunities and goals. Unless Motta is a great illusion, and we do not believe so, time will be the first ally.

Tonight could be the turning point. There is the Coppa Italia which is not this pandemonium, but it does not hurt in the club where the only thing that matters is winning. Empoli is the team in the most crisis in the championship and must think about saving itself, Juve cannot help but take advantage of it. In the semifinals there would be Bologna which is not the easiest of obstacles but not impossible either. Then the championship: after four wins in a row, here are Verona, Atalanta, Fiorentina, Genoa, Roma, Lecce, Parma and Monza. A streak that, excluding Gasp and Ranieri, it would be a sin not to exploit to consolidate third place or even distance the pursuers. The World Cup in July has too many crazy variables to be read today. It will not be a memorable season, perhaps, but all the conditions are there to banish the ghosts of Marchesi, Maifredi and Del Neri, just to remember the darkest recent moments, and relaunch. Juve has not yet seized the opportunity. If not now, when?