Vlahovic, an (almost) horrible year: Allegri, now it’s your turn

Injuries and controversies. The failures and – even – the gossip. No, it wasn’t the 2022 that Dusan Vlahovic wished for himself, nor what we predicted for him after seeing him last year in Fiorentina. It seemed written that, having moved to Juve, Dusan would have been devastating like in viola, indeed even more because he was supported by a better and more ambitious team. It didn’t happen that way.

The drop in performance

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Defining 2022 as Vlahovic’s annus horribilis is an exaggeration. It certainly wasn’t horrible – for example – for the centre-forward’s bank account, so much so that his salary multiplied tenfold, or almost: from Florence to Turin, in the space of a day, it went from 800,000 euros to 7 million net per season. And even on the pitch, after all, he managed to combine something: among the last remnants of Fiorentina, Juve and Serbia he was still able to reach twenty goals in the calendar year (one, sixteen, three). Yet since January 28, when he left Tuscany pursued by the resentment of his old fans, it has never been the same. Less decisive, less effective, less serene. We thought he already had the strength to shoulder a great team such as Juve, who have been looking for a real centre-forward for some time, but he hasn’t succeeded. Even the numbers say it wasn’t the same: in Fiorentina, in the first six months of last season, in 24 games he scored 20 goals, almost one per match; in black and white he scored 16 times in 36 matches, not even one goal every two appearances.

Physically tested

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Vlahovic arrived at the World Cup very tested physically. The injury he suffers from, and which has prevented him from playing the last four league games, is terrible because it is sneaky: the groin is almost invisible, yet he hurts like hell. Also for this reason his World Cup – that too – was disappointing: a goal cannot be enough, moreover useless, to satisfy a centre-forward who twelve months ago seemed to be able to compete with the best young forwards in the world; the fact that Serbia has been eliminated makes his mission in Qatar even more melancholy. A bit like what happened to Stojkovic’s national team, the eternal unfinished of the eternal unfinished: he has talent and excellent players in every department, but he never blossoms. Vlahovic, he concluded the adventure a little angry, a little discouraged. But, above all, worried: when will he finally be able to play freely in body and, consequently, in mind?

Another Juventus

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Vlahovic will find a different Juve: without Agnelli, without the managers who chased him, wanted him, welcomed him in Turin. He won’t be upset by the turnaround in society, he’s young but he has the armor, he left home when he was a kid and it won’t be the farewell of a president that upsets him. On the contrary, he expects and hopes to find another different Juve than when he left to play in the World Cup, in addition to the club: the one on the pitch. In his first year at Juventus, the team didn’t help him. And if in the first months there was the extenuating factor of a group with so many technical shortcomings, this start of the season the problem was different and he called Allegri into question. Juve have never put Vlahovic in a position to exploit all of his qualities: they often abandoned him up front, without bringing him a ball, for long periods of the season, including the Champions League; in certain matches his involvement in the black and white maneuver was zero. Then something happened: Dusan decided the derby with Turin but didn’t take the field in the last four games before the break, all of which Juve won. Allegri revived the team just when the Serbian wasn’t there. A case? Surely. But 2023 must also serve this purpose: to restart together, Vlahovic and Juve, both at their best. To forget the (almost) horribilis annus.