In 2013, Juventus president Andrea Agnelli claimed that within five years, the club would be in a position to buy a player of Cristiano Ronaldo’s caliber. And what do you know? It took the full five years, but he has kept his promise. But the club’s pursuit of Ronaldo began many more years ago, and looking back at how Juventus built the capacity to pull off such a mammoth transfer shows just how deliberately it has planned and executed in both the business and technical realms.



Let me take you back to 2003. Ronaldo was an 18-year-old prospect playing his first season at the professional level for Sporting Lisbon. Juventus sporting director Luciano Moggi was told by a trusted scout to go see him immediately. After watching him play in one game, Moggi spoke with the young man, and later said he came away convinced—by the way Ronaldo played and the way he spoke about how he trained and his ambition in the game—that he had the chance to sign a future...