With the arrival of five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, this could be the year that Juventus finally wins the Champions League again. Juventus has won Europe’s premier club competition twice but the last time was in 1996. It has been on the losing side in the final five times since then, including twice in the past four editions. The Bianconeri lost to Real Madrid in the 2017 final, with Ronaldo scoring twice in a 4-1 win. Ronaldo also scored twice against Juventus in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals last season, including a spectacular overhead goal — which earned him a standing ovation from Juventus fans. Juventus always plays down the idea that the Champions League has become an obsession but coach Massimiliano Allegri knows that having a player who has won the competition five times — including in four of the last five seasons — can bring some much-needed experience to the club.
“We’ve always had the aim of winning the Champions League and certainly the signing of Ronaldo will give us more awareness of how to achieve it,” Allegri said at an event at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday.
“But that, together with the league, the Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup are the four aims for which Juventus has always played for.”
Juventus has won the Serie A title for the last seven seasons — and the league and Italian Cup double for the past four — but it has struggled to transfer its domestic supremacy to the European stage.