{"id":211718,"date":"2025-10-14T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/211718\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:59:09","slug":"balzarini-slams-juventus-for-selling-alberto-costa-in-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/211718\/","title":{"rendered":"Balzarini slams Juventus for selling Alberto Costa in the summer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Italian journalist Gianni Balzarini feels Juventus made the wrong decision by offloading Alberto Costa in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old had only arrived in Turin last January, after completing a \u20ac13 million transfer from Vitoria Guimaraes.<\/p>\n<p>The young right-back had a relatively slow start, as he had to wait several months before earning the opportunity to prove his worth. While he wasn\u2019t able to earn any playing time under Thiago Motta, he became a regular starter for Igor Tudor in the final rounds of the previous campaign, and also took his chance in the FIFA Club World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Juventus traded Alberto Costa for Joao Mario<\/p>\n<p>This season, Costa made a swift return to his home nation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juvefc.com\/official-juventus-confirm-joao-mario-alberto-costa-transfers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">through the gates of Porto<\/a> on an indirect swap deal that saw Joao Mario move in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n<p>Costa has already cemented himself as a pillar for the Dragao, as evidenced by his five assists in seven appearances. On the other hand, Mario has yet to fully convince Tudor, who has instead opted to field Pierre Kalulu in an unusual position as a right wing-back.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fiorentina-v-juventus-serie-a-14.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fiorentina-v-juventus-serie-a-14.jpg\" class=\"lazyload lazyload wp-image-147384 has-webp size-full\" alt=\"Alberto Costa in action for Juventus\"  data- style=\"aspect-ratio:3000\/2004;max-width:1536px\"\/><\/a>(Photo by Gabriele Maltinti\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, Juventus will return to the market in January in order to bolster their wing-back department.<\/p>\n<p>The Bianconeri are currently being<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juvefc.com\/juventus-january-onslaught-nahuel-molina\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> linked with Atletico Madrid\u2019s Nahuel Molina<\/a>, who is no longer a starter in Diego Simeone\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<p>Balzarini feels Juventus should regret selling Alberto Costa<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Balzarini believes the Argentine would be a decent solution, but his services wouldn\u2019t have been required at Continassa had the club kept Costa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMolina, in my opinion, is a good player, as he can raise the team\u2019s technical level. Maybe a little,\u201d said the Sport Mediaset journalist on his YouTube channel (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juventusnews24.com\/balzarini-joao-maario-alberto-costa-parole\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JuventusNews24<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, Juventus already had a technically gifted player on the wing, and his name is Alberto Costa, who went to Porto.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s becoming an assist man, having already provided five assists this season. Everyone\u2019s enthusiastic about him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJoao Mario has arrived in his place, and he\u2019s less defensive and more offensive. Sometimes, not all transfer deals end up being successful. So, if Molina has to come, then Molina is fine. He wants to play, he wants to prove himself, and that\u2019s good,\u201d concluded Balzarini.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/8358eec36d8646ef64034d20714ad880\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Avatar\" class=\"lazyload avatar avatar-100 wp-user-avatar wp-user-avatar-100 photo avatar-default\"\/>\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juvefc.com\/author\/michel-sakr\/\" title=\"Posts by Michel Sakr\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michel Sakr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Michel is a football journalist based in Beirut who has been a die-hard Juventus supporter since 1996. He is a Law graduate and a member of the Beirut Bar Association. In addition to writing for Juve FC, he is also the Head Writer for The Laziali and a Featured Writer on other websites including Stretty News, and The Cult of Calcio.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" class=\"author-social\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Michel.Calcio10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/a>\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" class=\"author-social\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Michel_Calcio\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian journalist Gianni Balzarini feels Juventus made the wrong decision by offloading Alberto Costa in the summer. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-211718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}