Ronaldo was never a one-man team, MONSTER Vlahovic is

Carlo Garganese

• 27 Feb 2022 17:30 GMT
• 5 min read

Dusan Vlahovic has been at Juventus for little over a month and he has already become virtually a one-man team.

In the space of four days, Vlahovic was the difference between Juventus suffering two costly defeats and instead earning a precious draw and victory, respectively.

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Firstly, on Wednesday in the Champions League last-16 first leg at Villarreal, Vlahovic broke the deadlock just 33 seconds into his UCL debut.

It was the fastest-ever goal scored by a Champions League debutant as Vlahovic chested down a long Danilo pass before burying a stunning first-time right-footed finish into the bottom corner from a narrow angle.

For most of the rest of the game – and the entirety of the second half – Juventus defended for their lives. Vlahovic was totally isolated as the spearhead in a 5-4-1 formation, yet miraculously managed to hold off up to three defenders at a time to buy Juve time and help them to a 1-1 draw.

On Saturday, he was even more impressive. Juventus, as they have been for most of the season, were again poor at newly-promoted Empoli.

They were struggling at 1-1 when Vlahovic put them ahead before half-time with a finish of pure class. He dummied from his right to his left before firing home. Vlahovic then added a second with a sumptuous dinked finish over the goalkeeper. His goals were the difference between a 2-1 loss and a 3-2 win.

When Vlahovic was signed by Juventus in January for €80 million from Fiorentina, they were struggling outside of the top-four and at grave risk of not qualifying for next season’s Champions League. They are now in fourth, six points above Atalanta (who do have two games in hand) but they have also closed the gap on the top of the table from 12 points down to seven.

Returning manager Max Allegri has failed to implement any kind of cohesive system to the side. They fail to control the game, regularly have less possession than even provincial opponents (they had 41% of the ball versus Villarreal) and there is very little creativity or passing patterns.

But Vlahovic, at the age of just 22, has virtually single-handedly taken the team by the scruff of the neck and carried the team on his shoulders.

He scored 13 minutes into his Juventus debut against Verona with a brilliant lob and already has five goals for the club in all competitions (including his debated winner versus Sassuolo in the Italian Cup).

But more than just his goals, his overall play has been simply world class.

Standing at 6ft 4in, he possesses bull-like strength and is able to hold off the most physical of defenders – up to three at a time. His ability to take a long ball down with his back to goal while under pressure, protect it and bring others into play is second to none.

But he is not just an old-fashioned battering ram, he is technically excellent, has a magic-wand of a left foot and he can create chances for himself out of nothing.

Given Juventus’ virtual total lack of a style of play, they have already become totally reliant on Vlahovic. Pumping direct balls up to him and letting him do the rest.

To put it simply, he is doing everything that the previous number 7, Cristiano Ronaldo, was rather unrealistically expected to do for Juventus.

“Vlahovic is an important player, he has character as well as quality and has the kind of characteristics we didn’t have in the squad,” Allegri said after the game.

“I don’t think you can compare him and Ronaldo. The previous number 7 won the Ballon d’Or four times, whereas Vlahovic is at the beginning of his career. A good game isn’t enough, you need immense mental strength and he is at the start of his journey.”

But while Ronaldo did score 101 goals for Juventus in just 134 games – and will of course be remembered fondly for his three years in Turin – he would not have been able to single-handedly resolve games now like Vlahovic is.

Cristiano is now 37 and has shown at Man Utd this season that if he isn’t given the supply, he contributes very little. That has become more and more apparent as the season has gone – Ronaldo has one goal in 10 games in 2022 and only has scored in five of the last 21 matches since the start of November.

Vlahovic is also being given very little supply at Juventus but has been able to somehow resolve games all alone.

Ronaldo left Juventus in limbo just days before the summer market closed. It took the Bianconeri six months to find a replacement – they now have a monster not just for today but for the foreseeable future.

As the Gazzetta dello Sport headlined: “You can build a team around Vlahovic. Good night Ronaldo.”