There was some controversy when Juventus signed right back Dani Alves from Barcelona on a free transfer this past summer. The Brazilian was seen by many as an offensive upgrade on the right flank, a piece that could help Juve reach their goal of conquering the UEFA Champions League. Juventus director general Giuseppe Marotta looked to have kept up his streak of finding gold on the Bosman market.

But there was one small problem: Incumbent starter Stephan Lichtsteiner was still around. The situation at a position that for half a decade had been a rock suddenly became embroiled in controversy.

Lichtsteiner seemed to be on the losing end of the position battle until Juve’s 3-1 loss at Genoa on Nov. 27. Alves started that game as part of the back three, but was forced from the field 12 minutes from time after he broke his left leg. Suddenly, the only right back on the roster, Lichtsteiner, once again took the starting role, and his play has reminded everyone why he was so beloved in the first place.

With Alves now healed and the most important phase of the season ahead, coach Massimiliano Allegri has a big decision to make: Who is going to be Juventus’ starting right-back going forward?

Today, we’ll look over both players in depth to figure out who is the best player to hold down the right flank until the end of the season.

The Case for Lichtsteiner

Lichtsteiner has been so steady for the last five-and-a-half seasons that it’s been easy to forget the shambles that was the right back position before the team’s current run of success.

After Juve returned to top flight after the Calciopoli-enforced season in the wilderness of Serie B, Juventus entrusted the right flank to a flight of subpar players. The likes of Jonathan Zebina and Zdenek Grygera held the position for several years, and by the dark days of the Luigi Del Neri-led 2010-11 season, the majority of the starts were going to Marco Motta.

Marco Motta was a bad, bad man.

Stephan Lichtsteiner made the bad man go away.

Signed from Lazio for €10 million, Lichtsteiner was an instant upgrade from what the fans had endured in previous seasons. He was also the perfect player for Antonio Conte. He is tough as nails, physical, and runs forever. To make a door, the joke went, one merely needed to put Lichtsteiner in front of a wall and say “run,” then stand back until he broke through.

Garnering the nickname “The Swiss Express” for his relentless effort, Lichtsteiner came to embody the grinta that was instilled in the team by Conte. He has become one of the team’s talismans, one of only six players to have been part of all of Juve’s five consecutive scudetti.

Despite the media explosion about the possibility of an exit over the summer, Lichtsteiner remained with the team and, once his opportunity came, he took it. Shaky at first as he shook off the rust from extended periods on the sideline, Lichtsteiner has done a great job shoring up the right side, and the defense in general.

Juve have kept six clean sheets in the 10 games he’s played in over all competitions since Alves’ injury. The only time they have allowed more than one goal in Serie A since Genoa was the ugly loss at Fiorentina — a match Lichtsteiner missed due to a yellow card suspension. Compare that to Alves’ extended run as the starter early in the season, which also produced six clean sheets — over 13 games he played in.

Juve won the majority of those matches, but their propensity to bleed unnecessary goals early in the season always had the promise to become a major problem — as it did in the first half hour against Genoa.

Pit Lichtsteiner and Alves against each other as defenders and Alves may have an edge in counting stats. According to WhoScored.com, he averages 2.1 tackles and 1.8 interceptions per league match while Lichtsteiner tallies 1.5 and 0.5, respectively.

But Lichtsteiner, as his statistical history shows, has never been a volume tackler, despite his reputation for physicality. His defensive value comes from his sense of positioning and his ability to close down passing lanes before an opponent can use them. Alves may make more tackles, but off-ball defending is just as important if not more, and the Brazilian simply can’t approach his teammate in that regard.

With Lichtsteiner in the team, the back line has looked far more solid and has stopped bleeding goals, even after Allegri’s switch to his new hyper-offensive 4-2-3-1 formation. The solidity he offers at the back will be vital against the top-level teams Juve will meet if they go deep into the Champions League.

The Case for Dani Alves

Alves’ arrival was heralded by fans as a huge offensive upgrade.

Lichtsteiner’s industrious nature extends to the attacking phase. He is good at supporting down the wing and making himself available on overlaps, but his end product can sometimes be...lacking.

He’s supplied 14 assists since the beginning of the 2013-14 season, but he hasn’t averaged more than one completed cross per match since he was at Lazio, and his balls into the box end up wayward as often as they end up dangerous.

The arrival of Alves was expected to solve that problem. One of the main actors of Barcelona for the last eight years, he won the Champions League three times and was included in the FIFPRO World XI six times in his eight years at the Camp Nou.

At full form, Alves is indeed an offensive upgrade to Lichtsteiner. He averages 2.45 key passes between Serie A and the Champions League, as well as 2.35 completed crosses — numbers Lichtsteiner can’t come close to matching. Since the beginning of the 2014-15 season, he’s registered 19 assists between the two competitions — two of which have come in the Champions League this year. Lichtsteiner, by contrast, has only seven in that time frame.

That offense can mean the difference in a two-legged Champions League tie, especially with penalty box predators like Gonzalo Higuain and Mario Mandzukic to aim for. Alves also showed good early chemistry combining with Paulo Dybala on the right side when the Argentine dynamo decides to roam to the wide areas. There is an unusual amount of parity among the top sides in the knockout stages this year, and the extra firepower Alves provides could be the difference between an early exit and a second deep run in three years.

The trade-off, as we’ve already discussed, is defense.

Alves has made his name as an offensive player. The tactics he played in at Barca, especially the extreme tiki-taka system of Pep Guardiola and his immediate successor Tito Vilanova, didn’t require Alves to shoulder anywhere near the defensive responsibilities he will have to at Juve, especially in European play.

He’s garnered criticism over the course of his career for neglecting his duties in his own end of the field, and he was one of the main culprits of Brazil’s defensive collapse when they were shelled by Germany semifinals of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. His lapses can create messes for his teammates to clean up, or lead to mistakes on his part — like the rugby tackle on Paul Pogba in the Champions League final two years ago that he somehow managed to get away with.

That said he’s playing on a team that has more than enough quality on defense to mitigate any damage — but only if he keeps his mistakes to an absolute minimum.

The Verdict

At the end of the day, Allegri could have far worse options in deciding who will start on the right side of the defense. Alves is an aggressive attacker who can cause havoc on the right wing. Should Allegri persist with his new attack-minded setup, he could add an even greater element of pressure on an opposing defense. That being said, his defensive deficiencies could leave Juve vulnerable — especially given the offense-heavy 4-2-3-1 that seems more and more like Allegri’s default going forward.

Lichtsteiner, on the other hand, provides competence on the attack and utter solidity in defense. His chemistry with the likes of Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini — not to mention Gianluigi Buffon — is a critical element of a defense that he has helped to make one of Europe’s best over the last five-and-a-half years.

The choice comes down to augmenting the offense or tying down the defense. Offense may win games, but defense still wins trophies, regardless of what they say about the modern game. The fact that Lichtsteiner is back on the Champions League list and has extended his contract by a year seems to indicate that someone in the club’s front office was reminded of what Lichtsteiner can mean to the team over the last few months.

The team must soon think of the future of the right back position — Lichtsteiner and Alves will be 33 and 34 years old, respectively, by the end of the season — but that’s to be covered another day. In the now, Lichtsteiner is probably the best option to be the primary starter, while Alves provides any necessary attacking kick on an as-needed basis.