Juventus, Real Madrid, and What's Really Unbeatable

Álvaro Morata didn't celebrate on Wednesday evening in Madrid. He took down a headed pass from Paul Pogba, whacked the ball into the Bernabéu's turf and past Iker Casillas, then broke into an expressionless half-jog before his teammates mobbed him. He did so out of deference to the club that he signed with at 16, the one that helped him become the sort of striker who can start in a Champions League semifinal. He also knocked that club, Real Madrid, out of this year's Champions League tournament. All in all, it was quite a night.

It's not out of the question that Morata could return to the Bernabéu next season. Morata was sold to Juventus last summer for €20 million, with Madrid retaining the right to bring him back for €30 million. With Chicharito unlikely to extend his loan and Karim Benzema not proving himself irreplaceable, Morata would be a power buy for a club that does not traditionally show much concern for budgeting. If he doesn't come home, it will almost certainly be because Madrid got distracted by some other, marginally shinier object.

Pogba might be headed to the Spanish capital, too. He's the emerging luxury midfielder of the moment, and rumored to be on the shopping list of every financial giant in Europe. His reported €100 million price tag is absurd, but not unfathomably so. In other words, he's exactly the sort of talent that Madrid president Florentino Perez purchases nearly every summer, whether the team needs the player or not. Pogba would be Real Madrid's latest and greatest signature overly expensive signing. He'd be Ronaldo, Kaka, Modric, Bale, or James by any other name.

At any rate, Juventus are going to have trouble keeping both players. In Morata's case, they seem to be particularly shit out of luck. It's important to mention here that Juve are a sizable club. They have the best team in Italy, the nicest stadium, the most lucrative sponsorship deals, and the largest pile of cash at their disposal. They're very good and very rich in comparison to nearly every other club in Europe. But they have a problem: Real Madrid are bigger.

So are Bayern Munich, Barcelona, both Manchester clubs, Chelsea, and Paris Saint-Germain. Those are the megaclubs, the ones that can spend freely on just about anyone they want. When a player gets an offer from Bayern or Man United, even if he's already at a big-ticket club like Juventus or Dortmund or Arsenal, he's usually as good as gone, because who wouldn't want to max out his earning potential and compete for multiple titles every season? All that needs to be figured out is the size of the transfer fee.

This is bullshit, in a cosmic sense, but it's also just how top-level soccer works. It lends matches like Madrid-Juve, or Bayern-Dortmund, or, last season, Chelsea-Atletico an indescribable awkwardness. We watch two excellent squads compete while knowing that one or two of the players on the smaller side could be playing for the other team next year. A player like Paul Pogba exists in a state of in-betweenness in these games, wearing one uniform while another is ghosted onto him.

As an observer, you don't question that the guy wants to win, but it's tough not to question what it would mean to that player beyond satisfying his athlete-ly competitiveness. Simply by sharing the pitch with a future employer, he takes on the air of a mercenary. The player in question is just doing his job, and he'll do it for whoever's hiring. This is true of almost every athlete—of almost every person you'll ever meet—but it's typically not apparent is such stark terms.

It's also a reminder that even a club as big as Juventus can't compete with Real Madrid on an annual basis. They don't have the pull, and they don't have the cash-flow; virtually no one does. The implicit message from the megaclubs, as they poach talent from wherever they please each summer, is: if you threaten us, we'll strip you for parts. This makes the victories sweeter, perhaps—Juve handled Madrid over two legs, and they can be proud of that—but it also cultivates a pervasive doominess. Juventus could claim a Champions League title this season, and that's no small thing. But they had better relish the opportunity, because the economic realities of big-time soccer are already at the door.