Juventus centre-back pairing Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci have spoken out about Cristiano Ronaldo’s time in Juventus. Both have said that Ronaldo ignored the laws of humility, equality and unity in the locker room. He also did not buy into the idea of defending as a unit, which is something that players like Andrea Pirlo, Paul Pogba, Gonzalo Higuain and Carlos Teves all did.
Chiellini spoke to DAZN this week, saying: “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.
“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.”
Ronaldo scored 101 goals in 134 games across all competitions for Juventus. While he helped them win the Serie A and Coppa Italia, he failed to help them win the Champions League, which was the main objective of the transfer from Real Madrid.
Bonucci blamed the poor form of the team at the start of the season on Ronaldo. “Last year, the team played for him (Ronaldo). Now the squad has to rediscover the Juventus spirit that we had before he arrived.”
His departure has created a situation where Juventus need to rediscover playing as a team and not relying on one star forward all the time.
