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Juventus stumble in run in as Real Madrid retain EFL 1 title
With the FFO season now concluded, we'll take a deep dive into the season run in towards the finale of the campaign, one which saw Real Madrid crowned EFL 1 champions yet again.
With the pre season being filled with chops and changes with a manager merry go round taking place, Real Madrid were all of a sudden looking for a new manager as long time coach Steven K Talbot departed the most successful team in the world in order to take over as manager of Premier League outfit Chelsea.
With his boots needing to be filled, up stepped former Aston Villa manager Ian Greaves as he was finally given a 'big job' after coming so close many times only to be runner up.
Many dismissed Greaves and Real Madrid's chances of silverware with Simon Clarke's PSG team being tipped to win everything, even by the man himself!
You might be wondering why Roma weren't in the conversation....The former 2 time EFL 1 champions were also under new management as long time manager Derek Hughes hung up his managerial boots in order to focus fully on his YouTube career. His replacement, none other than former Liverpool coach Hamza Siddiqui who despite having many doubters claimed that his team would be challenging for the title this season.
The other usually suspects such as Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Juventus & AC Milan were expected to make up the chasing pack but the big money was on a battle between PSG & Real Madrid. Could Greaves handle the step up in player quality and go on to win the big games? Each manager backed themselves but the proof would be in the pudding and we'd only find out after 38 games had been played.
In the early stages it seemed like the pre season prediction would come true as Real Madrid & PSG set the pace alongside surprise package FC Barcelona however one of those 3 dropped away fairly early on and shockingly it was the mighty PSG!
Barcelona did eventually drop away all the way down to 8th as Sam Bradwell finished his first and only season with the club as he yet again moves on but as the season was heading towards the final stretch of games it was Juventus who led the pack with Real Madrid trailing in 2nd place and that's where we pick up our story, at round 28:
Juventus already held a 4 point lead over Real Madrid heading into the game against fallen giants PSG and the Spanish team would have hoped that their French rivals could do them a favour as they headed to face Lazio but as Real Madrid were sweeping struggling Lazio aside, Juventus were turning PSG over en route to another 1-0 victory. Their second this season.
These results meant that with just 10 games left to play, Juventus held a 4 point lead over Real Madrid and a whopping 12 point lead over lowly PSG and with Juventus & Real Madrid having almost identical remaining fixtures, could Juventus hold off the mighty Los Blancos? The final games would prove to have many ups and downs but ultimately Real Madrid would go on to win the league by a huge 7 points and at this point in our story is where it seemed to fall apart for the Italian giants.
3 consecutive defeats for Juventus at the hands of Rangers, title rivals Real Madrid & AC Milan completely derailed their season as Real Madrid earned 7 points in those 3 games with wins against Juventus & Rangers in Rounds 30 & 31 after a 1-1 draw with Sevilla in Round 29. These results meant that the title holders went from 4 points behind Juventus to 3 in front in a matter of 1 week.
Juventus were on the ropes, losing to a poor Rangers team, losing the lead against Real Madrid after parking the bus and then losing for the 4th time in the last 2 seasons (4 games) against a solid AC Milan team while Real Madrid were starting to grind out the results like we all know they can do but still, with 7 games remaining anything could happen.
Meanwhile, in Paris they started to play without fear and after ANOTHER embarrassing defeat at the hands of Fiorentina in Round 29, back to back wins for PSG against Rangers & Borussia Dortmund steadied the ship as they looked to pull away from the DPT places.
Rounds 32 & 33 saw Juventus earn 6 points from 6 available without conceding a single goal with a 3-0 win over Feyenoord & a 1-0 win against struggling Roma while another swing in the title race saw Real Madrid fall 2-0 against PSG in Round 32 to bring Juventus level in the title race and in Round 33 Juventus must have thought they'd retaken top spot as Madrid were struggling against AC Milan but two late goals in the 90th & 91st minute gave them all 3 points to keep top spot with their vast goal difference advantage.
PSG's charge up the league continued as they beat Real Madrid as previously mentioned and they demolished Sporting Lisbon 6-1 in Round 33.
Rounds 34 & 35 were where the title was lost for Juventus as they dropped 4 points against Celtic & Inter Milan with back to back 1-1 draws as the champions churned out back to back wins against Feyenoord & Roma which meant they held a 4 point lead over Juventus with just 3 games remaining.
Most thought that Juventus had no way of catching the league leaders with so few games remaining but if Juventus wanted to beat Madrid to the title, they had no room for any more dropped points.
PSG kept on winning with impressive victories against AC Milan & Atletico Madrid pushing them into 3rd place and closing in on Juventus in 2nd after being far behind them for most of the season.
A 1-0 win for Juventus against FC Barcelona in Round 36 meant that the title race would go into the final week of the season, but as Madrid toppled Celtic 4-2, it meant that the 4 point gap would remain and Juventus knew that their rivals needed just 1 more win but with games against Inter Milan & FC Barcelona, stranger things have happened.
Round 37 is where the league title was decided and going into the game, Juventus knew they couldn't afford any more mistakes while Real Madrid knew that 1 more win would be enough to seal the league title.
Both ended up happening as AS Monaco turned over a Juventus team who were awful in front of goal as the French team scored with their only shot of the game while Juventus were being kept out by any means as Juventus slumped to a 1-0 defeat.
While this was enough to hand Real Madrid the league title, they would have sealed it anyway as they beat Inter Milan 2-1 to give Ian Greaves his first title in his managerial career.
PSG closed in on Juventus even more, reducing the gap to just 1 point meaning if Juventus slipped up on the final game of the season away to Fiorentina, PSG could travel to Roma and leapfrog Juventus into 2nd after trailing by so many points for so long.
Round 38 finally came around and in the end all 3 teams earned wins with the league leaders smashing a FC Barcelona team who seemed to just roll over for their Spanish rivals as they were defeated 4-0.
Juventus brushed aside Fiorentina 3-1 as they secured 2nd place while PSG beat Roma easily by a 4-0 score line as they secured 3rd place after trying so hard late on for 2nd.
After all was said and done, we now look at the form of the top 3 teams in the final 10 games to assess where things went so wrong for Juventus.
1st placed Real Madrid earned 25 points from 30 in their last 10 games with their dropped points coming against Sevilla & PSG while runners up Juventus earned a pathetic 14 points out of 30 as they lost 4 times and drew twice with just 4 wins in those 10 games.
PSG lost in Round 29 against Fiorentina and then proceeded to win the remaining 9 games to end the season.
What went wrong in Turin? Why did Juventus go from title favourites to FFO's biggest chokers? We'll take a look at what could have caused this.
While Juventus boasted the league's best defensive record with just 34 goals conceded in 38 games, their lack of goals is a clear reason why Juventus may have dropped points this season.
Juventus scored just 70 goals, and while this is joint 3rd highest in the league alongside Bayern Munich & AC Milan, when you compare this to the 115 goals scored by champions Real Madrid & the 110 goals scored by 3rd placed PSG it just doesn't compare.
Another 15-20 goals might not have earned Juventus any more points however it's likely that it would have brought them closer to Real Madrid at the top of the league.
Another thing that could have caused Juventus' collapse was the failure to secure a deal to bring 22 year old Ansu_Fati to the club around mid season. Fati ended up leaving Manchester United to sign for Arsenal and Juventus stuck with S_Ginemez however could Fati have produced a bigger impact for Juventus? We'll never know but 1 player who did make an impact after signing was D_Tadic. A player who knows how to win a league title.
He was signed by Juventus from Real Madrid before the season started and after some concern over his minimum minute requirements Juventus shipped him out to eventual Premier League winners Tottenham Hotspur and he was replaced by retiring K_Benzema.
Tadic went on to be Tottenham captain and lead them to the league title while Benzema didn't turn up for Juventus, scoring just 2 goals for the club late on in the season.
Where do Juventus go from here? Most will expect PSG to bounce back next season after such a poor campaign so was this their chance to win the league with just 1 team to contend with while PSG struggled?
When you add to this that they held a 4 point lead with 10 games to play, a lead that could and should have been stretched to 6 points had they beaten lowly Rangers in Round 29 just before their tie against eventual league winners Real Madrid in Round 30 it seems like they had their chance and blew it.
We caught up with Juventus manager Andy Banks to speak to him about his teams season as he headed on his off season vacation:
"Overall we're really disappointed in our season, I won't lie.
We need to have higher standards than the ones we've had the last 6 months. We expect to be fighting for trophies and we've let ourselves down this campaign.
From exiting the EFL Cup early on to crashing out of a poor Champions League group it just hasn't been good enough and it's put a lot of pressure on myself and the players.
The league form was the only saving grace but our form in the final 10 games has been woeful and that's why we've finished where we finished and why PSG finished right behind us after being so far behind all season.
We have to take a look around and assess where we go from here as PSG won't have another season like this one and Ian Greaves has proved that he can win the big one and they'll be looking for a third straight league title next season and unless we want to be best of the rest again which we don't then we'll have to work hard to put ourselves in a position to be better.
We have some things in the works but they're not confirmed yet but believe me, we'll be doing everything we can to improve the club on every level but until then we're going to regroup and rest up."
2045 words​
Written weeks ago, so ignore anything out of date
With the FFO season now concluded, we'll take a deep dive into the season run in towards the finale of the campaign, one which saw Real Madrid crowned EFL 1 champions yet again.
With the pre season being filled with chops and changes with a manager merry go round taking place, Real Madrid were all of a sudden looking for a new manager as long time coach Steven K Talbot departed the most successful team in the world in order to take over as manager of Premier League outfit Chelsea.
With his boots needing to be filled, up stepped former Aston Villa manager Ian Greaves as he was finally given a 'big job' after coming so close many times only to be runner up.
Many dismissed Greaves and Real Madrid's chances of silverware with Simon Clarke's PSG team being tipped to win everything, even by the man himself!
You might be wondering why Roma weren't in the conversation....The former 2 time EFL 1 champions were also under new management as long time manager Derek Hughes hung up his managerial boots in order to focus fully on his YouTube career. His replacement, none other than former Liverpool coach Hamza Siddiqui who despite having many doubters claimed that his team would be challenging for the title this season.
The other usually suspects such as Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Juventus & AC Milan were expected to make up the chasing pack but the big money was on a battle between PSG & Real Madrid. Could Greaves handle the step up in player quality and go on to win the big games? Each manager backed themselves but the proof would be in the pudding and we'd only find out after 38 games had been played.
In the early stages it seemed like the pre season prediction would come true as Real Madrid & PSG set the pace alongside surprise package FC Barcelona however one of those 3 dropped away fairly early on and shockingly it was the mighty PSG!
Barcelona did eventually drop away all the way down to 8th as Sam Bradwell finished his first and only season with the club as he yet again moves on but as the season was heading towards the final stretch of games it was Juventus who led the pack with Real Madrid trailing in 2nd place and that's where we pick up our story, at round 28:
Juventus already held a 4 point lead over Real Madrid heading into the game against fallen giants PSG and the Spanish team would have hoped that their French rivals could do them a favour as they headed to face Lazio but as Real Madrid were sweeping struggling Lazio aside, Juventus were turning PSG over en route to another 1-0 victory. Their second this season.
These results meant that with just 10 games left to play, Juventus held a 4 point lead over Real Madrid and a whopping 12 point lead over lowly PSG and with Juventus & Real Madrid having almost identical remaining fixtures, could Juventus hold off the mighty Los Blancos? The final games would prove to have many ups and downs but ultimately Real Madrid would go on to win the league by a huge 7 points and at this point in our story is where it seemed to fall apart for the Italian giants.
3 consecutive defeats for Juventus at the hands of Rangers, title rivals Real Madrid & AC Milan completely derailed their season as Real Madrid earned 7 points in those 3 games with wins against Juventus & Rangers in Rounds 30 & 31 after a 1-1 draw with Sevilla in Round 29. These results meant that the title holders went from 4 points behind Juventus to 3 in front in a matter of 1 week.
Juventus were on the ropes, losing to a poor Rangers team, losing the lead against Real Madrid after parking the bus and then losing for the 4th time in the last 2 seasons (4 games) against a solid AC Milan team while Real Madrid were starting to grind out the results like we all know they can do but still, with 7 games remaining anything could happen.
Meanwhile, in Paris they started to play without fear and after ANOTHER embarrassing defeat at the hands of Fiorentina in Round 29, back to back wins for PSG against Rangers & Borussia Dortmund steadied the ship as they looked to pull away from the DPT places.
Rounds 32 & 33 saw Juventus earn 6 points from 6 available without conceding a single goal with a 3-0 win over Feyenoord & a 1-0 win against struggling Roma while another swing in the title race saw Real Madrid fall 2-0 against PSG in Round 32 to bring Juventus level in the title race and in Round 33 Juventus must have thought they'd retaken top spot as Madrid were struggling against AC Milan but two late goals in the 90th & 91st minute gave them all 3 points to keep top spot with their vast goal difference advantage.
PSG's charge up the league continued as they beat Real Madrid as previously mentioned and they demolished Sporting Lisbon 6-1 in Round 33.
Rounds 34 & 35 were where the title was lost for Juventus as they dropped 4 points against Celtic & Inter Milan with back to back 1-1 draws as the champions churned out back to back wins against Feyenoord & Roma which meant they held a 4 point lead over Juventus with just 3 games remaining.
Most thought that Juventus had no way of catching the league leaders with so few games remaining but if Juventus wanted to beat Madrid to the title, they had no room for any more dropped points.
PSG kept on winning with impressive victories against AC Milan & Atletico Madrid pushing them into 3rd place and closing in on Juventus in 2nd after being far behind them for most of the season.
A 1-0 win for Juventus against FC Barcelona in Round 36 meant that the title race would go into the final week of the season, but as Madrid toppled Celtic 4-2, it meant that the 4 point gap would remain and Juventus knew that their rivals needed just 1 more win but with games against Inter Milan & FC Barcelona, stranger things have happened.
Round 37 is where the league title was decided and going into the game, Juventus knew they couldn't afford any more mistakes while Real Madrid knew that 1 more win would be enough to seal the league title.
Both ended up happening as AS Monaco turned over a Juventus team who were awful in front of goal as the French team scored with their only shot of the game while Juventus were being kept out by any means as Juventus slumped to a 1-0 defeat.
While this was enough to hand Real Madrid the league title, they would have sealed it anyway as they beat Inter Milan 2-1 to give Ian Greaves his first title in his managerial career.
PSG closed in on Juventus even more, reducing the gap to just 1 point meaning if Juventus slipped up on the final game of the season away to Fiorentina, PSG could travel to Roma and leapfrog Juventus into 2nd after trailing by so many points for so long.
Round 38 finally came around and in the end all 3 teams earned wins with the league leaders smashing a FC Barcelona team who seemed to just roll over for their Spanish rivals as they were defeated 4-0.
Juventus brushed aside Fiorentina 3-1 as they secured 2nd place while PSG beat Roma easily by a 4-0 score line as they secured 3rd place after trying so hard late on for 2nd.
After all was said and done, we now look at the form of the top 3 teams in the final 10 games to assess where things went so wrong for Juventus.
1st placed Real Madrid earned 25 points from 30 in their last 10 games with their dropped points coming against Sevilla & PSG while runners up Juventus earned a pathetic 14 points out of 30 as they lost 4 times and drew twice with just 4 wins in those 10 games.
PSG lost in Round 29 against Fiorentina and then proceeded to win the remaining 9 games to end the season.
What went wrong in Turin? Why did Juventus go from title favourites to FFO's biggest chokers? We'll take a look at what could have caused this.
While Juventus boasted the league's best defensive record with just 34 goals conceded in 38 games, their lack of goals is a clear reason why Juventus may have dropped points this season.
Juventus scored just 70 goals, and while this is joint 3rd highest in the league alongside Bayern Munich & AC Milan, when you compare this to the 115 goals scored by champions Real Madrid & the 110 goals scored by 3rd placed PSG it just doesn't compare.
Another 15-20 goals might not have earned Juventus any more points however it's likely that it would have brought them closer to Real Madrid at the top of the league.
Another thing that could have caused Juventus' collapse was the failure to secure a deal to bring 22 year old Ansu_Fati to the club around mid season. Fati ended up leaving Manchester United to sign for Arsenal and Juventus stuck with S_Ginemez however could Fati have produced a bigger impact for Juventus? We'll never know but 1 player who did make an impact after signing was D_Tadic. A player who knows how to win a league title.
He was signed by Juventus from Real Madrid before the season started and after some concern over his minimum minute requirements Juventus shipped him out to eventual Premier League winners Tottenham Hotspur and he was replaced by retiring K_Benzema.
Tadic went on to be Tottenham captain and lead them to the league title while Benzema didn't turn up for Juventus, scoring just 2 goals for the club late on in the season.
Where do Juventus go from here? Most will expect PSG to bounce back next season after such a poor campaign so was this their chance to win the league with just 1 team to contend with while PSG struggled?
When you add to this that they held a 4 point lead with 10 games to play, a lead that could and should have been stretched to 6 points had they beaten lowly Rangers in Round 29 just before their tie against eventual league winners Real Madrid in Round 30 it seems like they had their chance and blew it.
We caught up with Juventus manager Andy Banks to speak to him about his teams season as he headed on his off season vacation:
"Overall we're really disappointed in our season, I won't lie.
We need to have higher standards than the ones we've had the last 6 months. We expect to be fighting for trophies and we've let ourselves down this campaign.
From exiting the EFL Cup early on to crashing out of a poor Champions League group it just hasn't been good enough and it's put a lot of pressure on myself and the players.
The league form was the only saving grace but our form in the final 10 games has been woeful and that's why we've finished where we finished and why PSG finished right behind us after being so far behind all season.
We have to take a look around and assess where we go from here as PSG won't have another season like this one and Ian Greaves has proved that he can win the big one and they'll be looking for a third straight league title next season and unless we want to be best of the rest again which we don't then we'll have to work hard to put ourselves in a position to be better.
We have some things in the works but they're not confirmed yet but believe me, we'll be doing everything we can to improve the club on every level but until then we're going to regroup and rest up."
2045 words​
Written weeks ago, so ignore anything out of date