The fallout from Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus departure continues to rumble on, with a damning new report in Italy claiming he failed to adhere to the most important rules of the dressing room.
Italian publication Tuttosport report that it was a case of one rule for Ronaldo and another for the rest of the squad during his three years in Turin, despite the club enjoying success during his first two seasons.
They claim that Ronaldo ‘crumbled’ the laws of ‘equality, unity and humility’ among Juve’s tight-knit squad – something defender Leonardo Bonucci alluded to earlier this week when he insisted they are playing more like a team without the Portuguese.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been accused of ‘crumbling the rules’ inside the Juventus dressing room
Ronaldo’s uncertain future at Juve last summer coincided with their poor start to the season
Prior to Ronaldo’s arrival in 2018, previous first-choice strikers Carlos Tevez, Mario Mandzukic and Gonzalo Higuain all bought into defending as a team and were flexible in their roles to help Juve win.
Other high-profile arrivals – such as Paul Pogba, Dani Alves and Andrea Pirlo – had no issue with this in the past too. However, Tuttosport say this wasn’t the case with Ronaldo following his £100million switch from Real Madrid.
It is claimed that the veteran forward ‘was never part of the pack’ when it came to defending as a unit and ‘never participated in the defensive phase’.
The report suggests misplaced passes would spark encouragement rather than criticism, but again that wasn’t always the case with the Portuguese superstar.
It is claimed that Ronaldo’s presence affected the team on and off the pitch and was a contributing factor to their poor start to the campaign – with the Serie A outfit only winning one of their opening four matches in all competitions. Ronaldo was still on Juve’s books for the first three of those games.
Tuttosport say that ‘cracks’ started to appear in the dressing room, particularly when it came to discipline, and that Ronaldo’s involvement in the starting XI made Juventus less compact and fragile at the back.
Similar claims have already been made of Manchester United since Ronaldo returned over the summer in a £19.7million deal, with manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer having to defend the star’s work-rate recently.
The Italian newspaper do point out that the forward’s attacking qualities can’t be questioned – he scored 101 goals in 134 games – but his lack of defensive effort in terms of tracking back and adapting to the team spirit were reportedly noticed.
Previous Juve strikers like Carlos Tevez were willing to work hard for the team unlike Ronaldo
Ronaldo completed a £19.7m million return to Manchester United in the last week of August
The 36-year-old left the Italian giants on August 31 to return to United – a deal that happened three games into Juventus’ season.
Juve are currently enjoying a nine-game unbeaten run – triumphing in eight of those fixtures and highlighting their upturn in form post-Ronaldo.
Veteran centre-back pair of Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini have attributed at least some of their improvement to the fact that Ronaldo is now long gone from Turin.
Speaking this week, Chiellini told DAZN: ‘Ronaldo left on August 28 and it certainly would’ve been better if he had gone earlier so we could prepare. Unfortunately, we paid a price for that.
Giorgio Chiellini (left) slammed Ronaldo for leaving Juventus too late in the transfer window
Chiellini claims Juventus were shocked by Ronaldo’s exit, which cost them points in Serie A
‘It does create a shock to the system and we lost points in the opening games because of that. If he’d left on August 1, then we would’ve had time to reorganise and be ready for the start of the season.’
When asked by Sky Sport Italia this week if Juventus are playing more as a team without Ronaldo, Bonucci said: ‘It’s absolutely true.
‘In the recent past we had lost this characteristic from Juve, we were playing with a great champion like CR7 and we wanted to put him in a position to always do well, thinking he could solve all the matches.
‘This year we are rediscovering that right humility that it serves to regain victory.’
It was not the first time Bonucci has spoken about a change at Juventus since Ronaldo’s departure, with the Italian explaining that they came to rely on the former Real Madrid man too much last term.
‘Cristiano’s presence had a big influence on us. Just training with him gave us something extra but subconsciously players started to think his presence alone was enough to win games,’ he told The Athletic.
‘We began to fall a little short in our daily work, the humility, the sacrifice, the desire to be there for your teammate day after day. Over the last few years, I think you could see that.’
Leonardo Bonucci (right) says Juventus are playing with more togetherness without Ronaldo