Turin (Italy) (AFP)

A real failure for Juventus and especially for his coach Maurizio Sarri: the day after the elimination of the Turin club by Lyon in the Champions League, the Italian technician finds himself on the front line to respond to an overall insufficient season.

"Forbidden to miss!" Headlined the Turin sports daily Tuttosport on Friday.

But Juve failed and the critics have not finished falling.

A year after leaving the quarter-finals, the "Old Lady" will watch Lisbon's "Final 8" from afar, but the elimination of this season is even more embarrassing than that of last year.

It comes a round earlier and, without disrespecting OL, Italian observers do not see the same qualities as at Ajax Amsterdam last year and do not imagine any Lyon player leaving like De Jong or De Ligt in Barcelona or Juve for more than 70 million euros.

The first target after this fiasco is Sarri, who came to add a touch of aesthetics to a team that always won but rarely seduced.

The contract was not fulfilled, with a suffering collective game all season and, above all, declining results, with this early elimination in C1, two defeats in the Cup final and in the Supercup and a scudetto won at the end of the fingers at the end of a championship concluded at a pace of promoted overdue.

- "Excellent match" -

After the match on Friday, Sarri spoke, in addition to the refereeing, of an "excellent match" and a hypothetical "classification of the C1", of which Juve would be "first or second with six wins, one draw and one defeat". So many statements interpreted Saturday as a lack of lucidity, even as the unsuitability of a man to a context.

“Sarri Out!”, Thus headlines Tuttosport, taking again the hashtag which on Twitter accompanied all this season the Tuscan technician, hardly liked by supporters Bianconeri.

The Corriere dello Sport switches to French to say "Adieu Maurizio" and the Gazzetta title on a "Black Night" and cites from its front page the names of Simone Inzaghi and Zinedine Zidane as possible successors, Mauricio Pochettino and Massimiliano Allegri being others options.

"A project can not depend on a single match but if the management is not 100% convinced, it should not persist," also said the daily in pink pages.

This opinion echoes the post-match statements of the president of Juventus Andrea Agnelli, not particularly reassuring for Sarri.

- Ronaldo the pillar -

"The record is bittersweet. It has been a very difficult season and we had a superb result winning a ninth championship in a row," he said at first.

"In the Champions League, however, it's disappointing. It is for us, for the players and for the tifosi. We will take our time and we will think about how to face the next season with renewed enthusiasm, which must allow us to always aim to win all the competitions in which we participate, ”he added.

The Turin leader also recalled that the Champions League was no longer a dream but a goal and it was quite obvious that when he recruited Cristiano Ronaldo, the plan was not to pile up the scudetti and fall before the high altitude facing Ajax or OL.

Economically either, the elimination is not good news for Juventus, whose accounts remain weighed down by Operation Ronaldo, and whose workforce would need a rejuvenation.

This last obligation does not concern the Portuguese (35), irreproachable and author of all the seven goals scored by Juve in the knockout phase since his arrival.

The five-time Ballon d'Or has said he will stay and its president repeated it on Friday, presenting him as "a pillar of Juventus". The pillar is solid but there is a lot of reconstruction work around.

© 2020 AFP