Winning every year is not as easy as Juventus make it look but the club’s sights are already set on improvements for next season

Juventus’s title celebrations began as they always have done recently, with Juan Cuadrado and a can of shaving foam. The Colombian went after his manager first, spraying Massimiliano Allegri’s hair white before bounding off to give Andrea Barzagli a makeshift mohican. After that it was time to baptise Cristiano Ronaldo into the Church of the Insatiable Old Lady.

As he went, the voice on the public address at the Allianz Stadium bellowed “Champions of Italy!” over and over. “You risk going hoarse when you say it eight times in a row,” it eventually concluded. “But it’s worth doing all the same.”

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Perhaps it is. We are so used to seeing Juventus parade the Scudetto these days that it is easy to forget how remarkable such achievements are. Their eight consecutive Serie A titles are three more than any team had strung together before them. Only three clubs – Genoa, Milan and Inter – have been champions of Italy more times in their histories than the Bianconeri in this present run.

Juventus have, as Luigi Garlando wrote in Sunday’s Gazzetta Sportiva, “transformed the Giro d’Italia into a time trial”. The question is not whether they will lift the title each year, but when. Was it over already when they began with eight consecutive league victories? Or perhaps even sooner, with the 3-1 triumph against Napoli that gave them a six-point advantage over last season’s runners-up by the end of September?

The gap never got smaller. Still, at least Napoli were present for a time: more than could be said for any other aspiring title rival. After 14 games, Juventus already had twice as many points as Roma – the team who finished third last season and went to a Champions League semi-final. Any notion that Inter might challenge evaporated as they lost against Parma and Sassuolo in the opening month of the campaign.

Juventus were not beaten by anyone in Serie A until March. Their first defeat, away against Genoa, coincided with another novelty: the first time all season that Ronaldo had been left out of the squad for a league game.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Juventus fans in Turin celebrate winning the title. Photograph: Massimo Pinca/Reuters

This season was always going to be defined by him, the €100m man, the club-record signing hailed as an alien when he first touched down in Turin. Ronaldo started slow and does not lead the Serie A scoring charts with five games to go, yet his impact on the pitch has been undeniable.

He has made complicated situations straightforward. Juventus trailed after 10 minutes of that first meeting with Napoli, before the five-time Ballon d’Or winner took charge. Ronaldo leads Juventus in both goals and assists.

But is it enough? He was signed to help Juventus win the Champions League, a fact acknowledged explicitly by club management. You could say Ronaldo delivered his end of the bargain with five goals in four knockout ties. Still, Juventus crashed out against Ajax. They were upset by Atalanta in the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia, too, meaning this will be the first time since 2014 that they fail to win a domestic double.

For all Cuadrado’s enduring enthusiasm, the title celebrations on Saturday felt muted. The Scudetto was sealed with a 2-1 win against Fiorentina but the performance was poor. Juventus needed only one point, but their opponents scored first and then hit the woodwork twice through Federico Chiesa. After Alex Sandro equalised, the game was eventually won via a Germán Pezzella own goal (after a cross from Ronaldo, of course).

On social media, Juventus’s marketing team branded the occasion as #W8nderful. A more honest label might have been #Underwh8lming.

That is not to denigrate the achievement. Winning every year is not as easy as Juventus make it look. They are where they are because of astute and ambitious leadership everywhere from the boardroom – with Fabio Paratici reminding us at full-time that club turnover has more than doubled since he joined, first as sporting director, in 2010 – to the pitch – where Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini have been present for all eight titles on the present run.

It is easy to forget, too, that they have faced tests along the way. Juventus lacked a real title challenger this season, but not last – when Napoli roared to 91 points and even conquered the Allianz Stadium in April. Nor indeed the year before that, when Roma made 87 points under Luciano Spalletti, and Napoli just one fewer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Massimiliano Allegri celebrates after Juventus beat Fiorentina. Photograph: Alessandro Di Marco/EPA

Still, the club’s sights this season were set higher, even if Ronaldo declared himself delighted to become the first player to win Serie A, the Premier League and La Liga. He insisted that missing out the Champions League was no tragedy, reminding us in a post-game interview that “only one out of 32 teams can win it”.

Ronaldo will be back to give it another try next season, insisting that “I’m staying here, 1,000%”. Allegri is expected to return, too. His six combined Serie A titles between Juventus and Milan place him second only now to Giovanni Trapattoni – who claimed seven with Juventus and Inter – yet there has been increasingly vocal dissent towards his leadership from a section of the fanbase.

Andrea Agnelli insisted in the aftermath of defeat against Ajax that he was sticking by the manager regardless. On Saturday, Allegri said that he expected to sit down with the club’s directors soon to discuss plans for next season. “We don’t need a revolution,” he reflected. “We need to improve the quality of our play and how we manage games.”

It was a fair assessment, but also perhaps not the kind one typically expects to hear from a manager whose team just won the league. Allegri had grinned as Cuadrado doused him in shaving foam and for a few moments he joined his players on the pitch to jump and embrace. There was a ritual here to be observed. He insisted to reporters that “the Scudetto will be celebrated”. Yet already it was apparent that his own mind was thinking beyond.

Talking points

• What an odd final chapter this continues to be in the race for Champions League places. Milan remain fourth, despite taking just five points from their past six games, and their draw away against Parma almost looks like a good result when you contrast it with Lazio losing against a Chievo team who were mathematically relegated a week before. Inter are looking safer in third after drawing with Roma, the result isn’t so bad for them either given the poor results for all their most immediate rivals.

• Could Torino yet muscle into the above picture? Their win away against Genoa puts them sixth, pending Atalanta’s game against Napoli on Monday night. The Granata are now just three points behind Milan, whom they host next weekend.

• There were rumours that Cesare Prandelli might be fired at Genoa, but he appears to have held on to his job for now. Since beating Juventus, the Grifone have taken one point from five games – and more worryingly scored just a single goal.