Cristiano Ronaldo, Juventus | Buffon points to Ronaldo as the start of the downturn:

Juventus is in a difficult period in the club’s history, and is a full 12 points behind league leader Inter in this year’s Serie A.

The problems started to pile up already last season, when the same club secured the league gold with a good margin down to the rest of the competitors. With profiles such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Pablo Dybala, Giorgio Chiellini and Gianluigi Buffon in the stable, there were greater expectations for the traditional club.

Now the latter has taken the magazine by the mouth, pointing to a current Manchester United star as one of the reasons why things went wrong.

– We lost our DNA during his (Ronaldo) time at the club, Buffon says in an interview with the channel TUDN.

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– We lost the team spirit

Buffon has well over 500 games for Juventus, and played with the Portuguese from 2019 to 2021. The 43-year-old then went back to where it all started before this season, in Parma.

– Juventus really had the chance to win the Champions League during Cristiano Ronaldo’s first season at the club. I was at PSG at the time, and did not understand what happened, says the last chance of the year when the Italians lost the quarter-final against Ajax.

And continues:

– When I returned, I played with him for two years, but felt that we lost our DNA. In 2017, we made it to the Champions League final as a team, but we lost that team spirit with Ronaldo.

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The superstar from Madeira went on to Manchester United before this season, and has scored several important goals for the Reds.

Believes Buffon may be right

Rolf-Otto Eriksen has followed Italian football for many years, and has witnessed Juventus’ lack of results recently. He believes the Italian ring fox has a good point around Ronaldo.

– I think Gigi (Buffon) has a good point there. It is the strong collective, unity and team machine that was Juve’s foremost strength in the invincible years. When Ronaldo comes in, everything else plays the second violin – not only other players, but also the collective, he says to Nettavisen.

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– Ronaldo scored many goals in Juve, but I think that the club had benefited from refraining from signing him, and in that way shown that Juve is still bigger than and more important than one player. The point is that the other players also expect Ronaldo to fix the steak – every time.

He further believes that Ronaldo’s presence may have gone beyond other big profiles in the club.

– It does something with the sense of responsibility as well, it can be weakened. Just look at the jewel Dybala. Hard for him to shine when Ronaldo constantly shadowed for him. So, yes, I think Gigi is right, without explaining the whole descent to La vecchia signora, Eriksen concludes.