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Are you familiar with the movie “Downsizing”?
It’s about an imaginary procedure in which human beings can choose to get permanently miniaturized as a way to address overpopulation and global warming. In the movie, a person shrinks to about five inches and lives the rest of their lives in tiny luxury communities where their money goes a lot further and their consumption and waste is significantly less.
It’s a fascinating concept for a movie. It tackles topics like late-stage capitalism, overconsumption, the human experience and what it actually means. It has a star-studded cast led by Matt Damon, Christoph Walz and Kristen Wiig, who are all good actors and is written and directed by Alexander Payne who is a two-time Oscar winner. In theory, this movie had everything to succeed.
In reality, however, the movie bombed. It was panned by critics and audiences alike and ended up being a massive a massive box office flop. It never really decides what type of movie it wants to be as it places itself uncomfortably between a drama, a comedy and a satire while being effective at none of those genres.
I really, really hated this movie because as soon as I heard the concept, I thought it was an incredible idea. I desperately wanted this to be good — the few scenes that work are extraordinarily interesting but everything else fails so badly that once the credits rolled, I remember leaving the theater particularly upset in what the movie ended up being.
A lot of people are tired with Hollywood’s obsession with rebooting and sequeling to death every halfway decent successful franchise. While I’m also a bit tired of seeing the umpteenth version of Jurassic Park — World? — hit theaters I don’t think going back to the well of something that was already done is a bad idea. However, I’d much rather see studios give second chances to good ideas that were just poorly executed.
Not just “Downsizing” but there’s so many movies out there that had good, interesting premises that never panned out for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean that they should just be discarded outright, but rather maybe figure out what didn’t work, improve it, learn from your mistakes and fix what’s broken instead of throwing it away.
Not necessarily by choice, but more out of necessity Juventus — the crappy, disappointing movie in this thinly stretched metaphor — is going to try to run back a flawed concept this coming season that starts up next weekend and hope that they can fix what is in theory a talented team.
(Stretching our metaphor even more: There were some people who enjoyed “Downsizing.” Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter named the movie his best of 2017! Is there anybody out there who thinks the Thiago Motta era was just misunderstood? Anything is on the table.)
With the new season starting next Sunday against Parma, there are remarkably few new faces on a Juventus team that finished just barely in the top four and did not come close to challenging for any silverware. The new front office led by Damien Comolli brought in Canadian striker Jonathan David on a free signing, traded Alberto Costa — we hardly knew ye — for fellow Portuguese national Joao Mario to boost the wings and … not much else.
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Don’t get it twisted, even if the grand Thiago Motta experiment had worked, this probably would have been a relatively quiet transfer window. Given Cristiano Giuntoli’s strategy of loan deals with either options or obligations to buy for the following summer, this window was always going to be more about keeping the team together rather than making a whole lot of improvements.
And that would have been fine if, you know, this team had been good. But considering that the 2024-25 season was a massive disappointment to put it mildly, you’d be forgiven if you were unexcited about running it back with essentially the same squad.
Then again, is it such a bad idea?
Motta was a bad coach for Juventus. He was too rigid as a tactician, made way too many unnecessary rotations and probably lost the locker room at some point. A lot of things had to go right for Juventus last season for Giuntoli’s grand plan to be successful, and very few of those things did.
Is there an argument to be made that with better coaching and better luck this team could have done significantly better? On paper, at least, this is not a team that is devoid of talent. Teun Koopmeiners and Douglas Luiz had terribly underwhelming seasons last year, but they are not far removed from being two very sought after midfielders. A bounce-back campaign to even 75% of their pre-Juve level could be a significant boost in terms of talent alone.
One of Motta’s cardinal sins was his misuse of Kenan Yildiz. Far and away Juve’s most talented offensive player and one of the few that has game changing abilities at his feet. Using him as a natural winger was a waste of Yildiz’s talents and while he submitted a decent season operating in that position, it was clear his skyrocketing career trajectory was slightly derailed by the limitations of the role.
Gleison Bremer looked as steady as ever in his first couple of appearances after his season-ending ACL injury last October. Those injuries are always tricky and sometimes take longer to fully come back from, but the early returns have been promising. Adding one of the best — if not, the best — defender in the league back to a squad that struggled defensively is certainly to be a boost.
In a relatively similar case, Andrea Cambiaso was a shadow of himself in the second half of last season. Between a change in formation and a lingering ankle injury, one of the best performers in the team limped to the finish line much like the rest of the club. Having him back to full strength is surely going to be significant.
While I remain skeptical of Igor Tudor’s appointment, one good thing he has done is to play key players in positions that suit their strengths, instead of pigeonholing them in rigid positions for the sake of a system like Motta did.
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We have already seen Yildiz perform significantly better thanks to the positional structure and freedom given to him by Tudor. Cambiaso is another who has looked improved in a wingback role that suits him better than a straight fullback. Giving Luiz minutes in a more forward, attacking position is another example of Tudor trying to make his lineup suit the skills of their players in a more proactive way that could be beneficial in the long run.
Ultimately, we would have all liked to see a lot of wheeling and dealing to make this team as competitive as it could be and there is only so much that internal improvement can do when you are looking straight into the barrel of giving Lloyd Kelly, Nico Gonzalez and Dusan Vlahovic consistent minutes and a paycheck.
But there is a not completely unrealistic scenario in which the promising parts of the squad assembled last season with the cosmetic tune ups that Comolli has done so far ends up producing a team that performs better than expected.
Will that translate into a title contending team? Probably not, but weirder things have happened. In the end, Juventus seems to be banking on this internal improvement strategy so we might as well talk ourselves into it, folks.
And, seriously, don’t watch “Downsizing” it sucks.