Juventus makes a difficult and correct decision by exchanging Mattia Caldara against Leonardo Bonucci

Hot shots sizzle like rolls in a Waffle House, all in reaction to Leonardo Bonucci's early return to Juventus in exchange for Mattia Caldara and Gonzalo Higuain's ready-made bond. Some Juventus supporters call the decision "stupid", with some Juventus fans calling the former center of Bianconeri "snake" for pushing for a return to Turin, and some Juventus fans go as far as possible. to claim this departure from Beppe Marotta. to be "the beginning of the end".

The stupid and inaccurate truth about this movement is that both are both risky and tactically intelligent; it is both difficult and precarious. Wisdom in the movement goes beyond financial necessity, and surely this element plays a vital role – our ignorance to individuals notwithstanding; the move even goes beyond Bonucci's superior experience at Caldara, beyond the "win-now" mantra in the wake of the early days of the Cristiano Ronaldo era.

It's the right move – though difficult and risky – because Juventus does not need another advocate;

The Juventus fights against the press last year were quite well documented and certainly evident against the best teams, and useless as pre-season games, it is rather amazing to see that Bayern Munich Lite and Benfica. Juve also played without their best players, but the starters for these two friendlies were mostly first-team players.

Caldara might be a better defender than Bonucci, but Bonucci is a better smuggler exponentially. For me, it's Marotta's lightest sleight of hand. If this swap was a similar move, then it would be frustrating. But the fact that both players are called "central defenders" denies the fact that, in reality, they offer completely different sets of skills.

Last year, Bonucci averaged 17 more passes per game than Caldara. to start. The number of passages, of course, is not a kind of indicator alone. Where Leo's skills – which, surely, we can all agree on, were sadly missed last year – are really brilliant thanks to his key passes and his long balls per game. The previous statistic brings out Caldara from the water: last season, while theoretically Bonucci was not at his best, he averaged four times the number of key passes per game (0.4-0). 1). In this last category, long balls per game, Bonucci doubles Caldara from 7.7 to 3.8. From my point of view, Miralem Pjanic takes into account here. Against high-pressure teams a year ago, the Juve midfielder seemed often stranded, leaving behind central defenders with only Giorgio Chiellini and Medhi Benatia as outlets. I think the addition of Bonucci will do wonders for Pjanic's freedom in the midfield. None of this means that players to whom Bonucci will send balls will also be exponentially better. Bonucci to Ronaldo on top of the defenses. . . yes, please.

But let's not stop non-contextualized passes. Here is a comparison chart for Bonucci and Caldara, courtesy of Understat.com, which shows not only how clearly the players are different – Caldara the scorer, Bonucci the well-balanced distributor – but shows, above all, the superiority Exponential Bonucci

The two statistics that I look at the most are xGChain90 – "total xG of each possession in which the player is involved by 90 minutes" – and KP90 – "The passes lead to the shot by 90 minutes. " Over the past two seasons from which these stats were derived (I wanted a bigger sample, more Bonucci at Juventus and a season when Caldara was Bonucci was a significantly bigger player for his team's team As Caldara, even taking into account the tactical differences between AC Milan and Atalanta, this has always been part of Leo's game.

Bonucci more than doubled Caldara's mark in the expected goals in which the players were involved in possession, and he more than tripled Caldara in the passes that led to the shots.I do not know if I can exaggerate how important this is going to be this year as teams look for different ways of

I do not want to pretend that it does not kill Caldara, I know it's not the most fascinating thing, but I do not think this movement is the end of the world or the most intelligent thing in the world. Bonucci is, in my opinion, objectively better suited in terms of tactics. But it is also extremely difficult to part with a young center that could have the courage and skill to be the best Italian center of its generation.