The Weekly Take, Issue 194: The Empire's Collapse Is Complete

AC Milan and Juventus both dropped crucial points in their respective quests for the Serie A title and a Champions League qualification spot with a 0-0 draw in a crucial league match. It was a match which was reflective of the final score - obvious chances were rare and both teams lacked the killer touch on the offensive end. Juve can count themselves rather fortunate to have escaped San Siro with a point after failing to register even one shot on target.

Nevertheless, the result leaves Juve in fifth place in the league, 11 points behind leaders Inter Milan but having played an additional match. This means that if the season were to end today, Juve would fail to qualify for next season's Champions League. If Juve were to remain outside the top four at season's end, it would be the first time in 11 years that the Bianconeri would miss out on Europe's leading club tournament.

Juve's collapse over the past two seasons has been stunning to witness. During the period spanning the 2011-12 and 2019-20 seasons, Juve won the Serie A title every single time, often by massive margins. They also won four Coppa Italia titles and reached the final of the Champions League in 2015 and 2017, losing to Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.

The point of origin of Juve's collapse can easily be pinpointed: the firing of former head coach Maurizio Sarri at the end of the 2019-20 season. Juve had just come off an upset loss at the hands of Lyon in the Champions League. In a move that few saw coming, Sarri was forced out of the club the very next day and replaced by Andrea Pirlo. This would prove to be a catastrophic move as in his one season in charge at Allianz Stadium, Pirlo would turn in one of the worst single-season coaching performances of the last decade. Despite inheriting a loaded team, Pirlo somehow managed to take Juve to a highly disappointing fourth-place finish in the league. He also presided over a last-16 Champions League exit and was deservedly fired at season's end.

The return of Massimiliano Allegri to the Juve dugout at the beginning of this season temporarily brought some optimism. However, it soon became clear that the problems at Juve extended far beyond the identity of the head coach. Juve stumbled out of the gates this season, dropping cheap points left, right, and centre. Despite topping their Champions League group, their upcoming round of 16 tie against Villarreal will by no means be straightforward.

Allegri's tactics in his second stint in charge of Juve have also been questionable on many occasions. His decision to deploy Adrien Rabiot as a winger has been a real head-scratcher, while his midfield pairings in his 4-4-2 formation which combine any duo of Weston McKennie, Manuel Locatelli, Rodrigo Bentancur, and Federico Bernardeschi are clearly not working. It can even be argued that the very fact that Allegri favours a 4-4-2 formation is suspect; this formation is considered to be outdated and obsolete by most.

Additionally, Juve made an inexcusable error in the transfer window of the previous off-season by failing to account for the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo. This left them with Álvaro Morata, Paulo Dybala, and Moise Kean as their primary strikers. As was so clearly shown against Milan, Juve have unsurprisingly struggled up front all season long. With the two-thirds mark of the season approaching, the Turin club have found the net a meagre 34 times over 23 league matches. To put this figure in perspective, Juve score fewer goals per league match than do clubs such as Leicester City, Valencia, 1. FC Köln, and Eintracht Frankfurt - not exactly the most distinguished of company.

It's still too early to write the obituary on Juve's season, of course. However, the way things are going, the future does not look good for Juventus at all. This doesn't just apply to the rest of this season - it could be years before Juve are once again a genuine contender for domestic or continental titles. There seems to be no end in sight to their woes.

The powerhouse that was built over so many seasons has clearly been brought down in just one. A long, long rebuild seems likely.

The Weekly Take, Issue 193: Back to Haunt Them Again

Manchester City's almost-complete dominance of the Premier League continued when they beat Chelsea 1-0 during the most recent league matchday. This time, it was a player once rejected by Chelsea who came back to strike another blow against his former club.

Kevin De Bruyne scored the only goal of the match to clinch the victory for the Citizens. City's victory extended their lead at the summit of the Premier League to 11 points. On the other hand, the Blues' loss saw them surrender second place in the league to Liverpool, who beat Brentford 3-0.

Even to this day, it remains almost inconceivable how Chelsea managed to let a generational talent like De Bruyne slip through their fingers. The Belgian's first season as a Chelsea player in 2012-13 was spent on loan at Werder Bremen. While in northern Germany, De Bruyne clearly established himself as a star of the future. The Belgian was named the Bundesliga's Young Player of the Year after almost single-handedly saving the club from relegation at the age of just 21.

Inexplicably, Chelsea took absolutely no notice of this and almost never fielded him after his return to Stamford Bridge. De Bruyne would feature in just three league matches during the first half of the 2013-14 season before being signed by VfL Wolfsburg for €22 million in January 2014. It would be at Wolfsburg where De Bruyne would emerge as a bona fide superstar. He was selected as the Bundesliga's Player of the Year in 2014-15 after leading Wolfsburg to second place in the league - their best finish since their astonishing league triumph in 2008-09. De Bruyne was also the driving force behind Wolfsburg's first-ever DFB-Pokal title in that same season.

Not long after, City came for De Bruyne's services and signed him for €75 million. The rest, as they say, is history. Almost seven years later, De Bruyne has now become a true City legend - easily one of the Manchester club's five best players ever with an argument for #1. He is rightly recognized as one of the best playmakers in the world not only today, but also of all time. To top it all off, De Bruyne has even arguably surpassed former Chelsea teammate Eden Hazard as the greatest Belgian player ever.

Chelsea's failure to retain De Bruyne is absolutely inexcusable. After being presented with the evidence of what he'd done in his one season on loan at Werder, it should have been obvious that De Bruyne was "that guy". For some reason, however, Chelsea chose to ignore the proof and left him behind Oscar, Willian, and André Schürrle in the pecking order. None of those players ever ended up being even close to De Bruyne's level. Undoubtedly, Chelsea's decision to give up on De Bruyne in 2014 has to go down as one of the all-time transfer fails.

Astonishingly, just a few months after De Bruyne's departure, Chelsea would repeat the same error with his compatriot. Over the preceding two seasons, Romelu Lukaku had established himself as a legitimate goalscoring threat in the Premier League. Lukaku had just finished a season on loan at Everton, where he had amassed double figures in the goals column for the second time. Nevertheless, Chelsea deemed him to be surplus to requirements and made his spot at Everton a permanent one. Lukaku would later go on to become one of the world's best centre-forwards, culminating in a victorious Serie A campaign with Inter Milan in 2020-21. Ironically, Lukaku has since returned to the London club, only to enter the worst slump of his career to date.

To be fair to Chelsea, they are run much better today than they were three or four years ago. It is much less likely that the Chelsea of today would have failed to see De Bruyne's potential the way that the Chelsea of back then did. However, every new page that De Bruyne continues to add to his story only serves to rub it in even more - the only two words that come to mind are "what if".

There are some mistakes that never truly leave a club because of how utterly monumental in scope they are. Despite what Chelsea have already accomplished in the years since De Bruyne's departure, no one can dispute that every time he comes back to haunt them, it was entirely of their own doing.

The Weekly Take, Issue 192: Fizzling Out After a Hot Start

Napoli began the 2021-22 season in molten-hot form, winning their first eight Serie A matches and surging into first place in the league. At that point, it somewhat felt as though Gli Azzurri were fated to win their first league title since 1990, given the fact that this was their first complete season since the tragic death of Diego Maradona just over a year ago. The Argentine was not only arguably the greatest player of all time; he was also by far Napoli's greatest and most iconic player. As such, one might have expected the team to become more driven than ever before to "win it for Diego".

However, since then, their blistering early-season form has petered out. This was evidenced in a 1-1 draw against Juventus, a result which extended a dismal run of form in the league. Dries Mertens put Napoli ahead midway through the first half, but Federico Chiesa's equalizer ensured that the Bianconeri would put yet another dent in their Campanian rivals' league title bid.

With that result, Napoli now lie six points behind league leaders Inter Milan despite having played one additional match. Even more alarmingly, over their past nine league matches, Napoli have collected just two wins and amassed a mere nine points, allowing both Inter as well as AC Milan to overtake them and almost certainly guarantee that the Scudetto will stay in the city of Milan barring a remarkable turn of events in the following months.

Napoli's form in European competition has also been less than stellar. Drawn into what should have been a relatively simple Europa League group containing Spartak Moscow, Leicester City, and Legia Warsaw, Napoli could only finish second in Group C. They lost out on top spot to Spartak on head-to-head record and thus missed out on a direct round of 16 spot. This also means that in what would be a significant shock, Napoli could very well end up exiting the tournament in the round of 24. They have been drawn against Barcelona in that round; despite Barça's struggles this season, they will nevertheless prove to be difficult opposition for Luciano Spalletti's team.

It will only get more difficult for Napoli in the coming weeks. Three of the club's players have departed for Cameroon to represent their countries at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations. Crucially, two of them are among Napoli's most important players: Senegalese defender Kalidou Koulibaly and Cameroonian midfielder André-Frank Zambo Anguissa. In the duo's absence, Napoli will have to find some way to rediscover their early season form; Atalanta and Juve are nipping at Napoli's heels in the chase for the final two of Serie A's four Champions League qualification spots. Any further slip-ups will almost certainly be punished.

In the ongoing January transfer window, Napoli should seriously consider acquiring a proven goalscorer. At the halfway point of the current Serie A season, Dries Mertens is Napoli's leading goalscorer with six league goals as of this post. This is worrying for two reasons: 1) it is alarmingly low figure for a club's leading scorer at this point of the season and 2) Mertens is 34. The attacking players who are in their prime have not been racking up the goals as one would expect. This lack of firepower up front has become increasingly evident in recent weeks; Napoli have scored just two goals over their last four league matches.

Napoli's lack of activity in the off-season transfer window has also come back to bite them. The only money they spent on transfers last summer was on Anguissa when they brought him in from Fulham; even that money was merely one of the requirements of a loan deal. While Napoli aren't necessarily as loaded with cash as are some of the other leading Serie A clubs, the absolute pittance they spent on transfers is inexcusable for a club at this level which intends to compete for domestic and European silverware.

There's certainly still time for Napoli to turn it around. However, considering the facts that this season's Serie A was poised to have one of the most open and hard-fought title races ever and that Napoli were among the favourites to win the Europa League, it's starting to feel as though after their blazing start, Napoli might just find themselves experiencing something of a "lost season".

The Weekly Take, Issue 191: An Extremely Costly Loss

The battle for the last two of La Liga's four Champions League qualification spots could scarcely be more hotly-contested. As of this post, nine teams spanning from Real Betis in third place to Espanyol in 11th are separated by just seven points. Two of these nine teams faced off during the most recent La Liga matchday, with Atlético Madrid snapping a four-match losing streak by beating cross-town rivals Rayo Vallecano 2-0. Ángel Correa's brace was enough to help Atlético leapfrog Rayo; the win put Atlético on 32 points to Rayo's 30.

With half of the season having already elapsed, Rayo are on course for the most successful league campaign in the club's history. Their previous best league finish was eighth; this occurred in the 2012-13 season. This fact is especially impressive given the fact that Rayo were only just promoted from the Segunda División at the end of last season after beating Girona in a two-legged playoff final.

Rayo's surge up the league table this season has also come without anyone even close to being a true superstar. By far the biggest name on their squad is Radamel Falcao. The Colombian veteran arrived at the Campo de Fútbol de Vallecas via a free transfer from Galatasaray during the off-season. However, he is the biggest name in fame only; this is backed up by the fact that he only has four league starts thus far this season.

The key figures behind Rayo's success this season have been players such as Óscar Trejo, Isi Palazón, Stole Dimitrievski, Alejandro Catena, and Santi Comesaña. They have proven to be able to give anyone a tough match on any given day; this was most clearly shown back in October when they beat Barcelona 1-0.

Rayo have also turned their stadium into a veritable fortress. Of the nine league home matches which Rayo have played up to this point, they have won eight. The only one which they did not win was a goalless draw against Celta Vigo. Rayo are not merely beating opponents at home; they are crushing their opposition. They are winning their home matches by an average of two goals.

That being said, this unexpected success has forced Rayo to re-evaluate their objectives for this season. Rayo now find themselves right in the midst of a highly competitive race for the top four. With this in mind, this was a match which they absolutely could not afford to lose, especially given the fact that reigning league champions Atlético were in an alarming slump prior to the all-Madrid clash.

It should also be noted that the corollary of Rayo's incredible home form is their dismal away form; it is the reason why they are only in sixth place in the league at the moment. Their loss against Atlético meant that from the 10 away matches they have played thus far, Rayo have collected a meagre five points. If Rayo end up failing to qualify for next season's Champions League, it seems more than likely that their poor play on the road will be the main culprit.

Rayo's lack of experience in this situation might also go on to be their undoing. As was mentioned, never in the club's history have Rayo been this close to Europe's leading club competition. Some of the other clubs involved in this dogfight include Atlético and Barça who are usually title contenders but are having down years this season. Also in the hunt for Champions League spots are Valencia, Villarreal, and Real Sociedad - all teams with considerable experience in top-four chases. Thus, it should not come as all that much of a surprise if the pressure were eventually to make Rayo crumble.

None of this, of course, should take anything away from what Rayo have already accomplished. In the first half of this La Liga season, Rayo have been successful beyond even what their most devoted fans could ever have imagined.

However, now that Rayo Vallecano know where in the league they truly stand, they now have to gird their loins for an almighty push for a Champions League spot. Unfortunately for them, their loss to Atlético was not only highly costly in the moment; it might signify the moment when their top-four challenge began to unravel. That being said, it's still clearly up for grabs; however, Rayo are by no means likely to clinch a historic Champions League berth.