Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic is heading into the final year of his contract with the Bianconeri, and as the club negotiates to keep Randal Kolo Muani for longer from PSG and welcomes incoming free agent striker Jonathan David, the transfer rumors surrounding Vlahovic’s own future continues to swirl.
But the old rumors linking him to giant clubs like Premier League title contenders Arsenal have waned, and as Juve continue to toil away from the true Serie A title race, Vlahovic’s own transfer has, likewise, taken a significant hit.
The on-and-off again contract and transfer talks have now yielded a clear reality, and that is the fact that Vlahovic is in a make-or-break year at Juventus. He either blows up and earns a long-term future at the club he chose to join a few years ago, or he picks up the pieces and strives to revive his career elsewhere.
But how did Vlahovic go from one of the hottest young strikers in the world alongside Erling Haaland to an afterthought and the frequent butt of jokes? Was Vlahovic ever good to begin with or was he a myth? Let’s break it down.
How good was Dusan Vlahovic at Fiorentina?
Dusan Vlahovic was one of the most touted young strikers at Fiorentina. When he was 20 and 21 years old, he was a full-time starting striker for the historic Italian side, scoring 38 goals in 58 appearances.
In his first season as a full-time starter, Vlahovic averaged 0.65 goals per 90 minutes, and in 21 games in the 2021/22 season prior to his mid-campaign transfer to Turin, Vlahovic was averaging 0.82 goals per 90 minutes.
Those are tremendous rates for a young, U23 striker playing for a Fiorentina side that was in the mid-table and not actually all that great at creating chances for Vlahovic.
For example, in the 2021/22 season, Fiorentina’s leader in assists was Nicolas Gonzalez with 6 – and nobody else even had 5. Vlahovic’s 17 goals in 21 games led Fiorentina by the end of the season, and even without Vlahovic dominating the goals for about half the campaign, the next best goal-scorer was still Gonzalez with only 7.
Vlahovic did a lot with, in all honesty, very little. He only needed a sniff of space or the idea of shooting on goal to actually score, and he was executing some really difficult finishes in terms of distance, angle, and velocity needed to score.
Why Juventus signed Vlahovic and initial expectations
In short, Dusan Vlahovic looked every bit like a player deserving of a move to Juventus. Since Juve sold Serie A’s best goal-scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo, at the beginning of the 2021/22 season, they were very much in the market for a young, ascending striker to fill their scoring need.
Their previous No. 9, Alvaro Morata, wasn’t much of a scorer either, so Vlahovic came in with the expectation that he’d immediately be the anchor point of the attack and bring with him the 17 in 21 pedigree from Firenze to Turin.
That expectation was reflected in the price tag for Vlahovic, who set Juventus back 70 million euros, as other top European clubs like Arsenal were also looking to sign the young Serbian striker to be their centerpiece goal-scorer for potentially the next decade.
Juventus were in that doubt and love nothing more than to make statement signings for young Serie A talent from notable clubs in the league. The thing is, Juventus had already spent big on players like Federico Chiesa and had the pandemic to worry about, so signing Vlahvoic at that time was a financial risk that would put them in a bind and prevent them from making other big signings.
There was also the matter of his wages, and even with all the reworkings in the years since, Vlahovic still makes 22.2 million euros per season, which is more than double the rates paid to the next highest-paid players on the team.
The case for him being overrated
That leads into the biggest case for Dusan Vlahovic being overrated. Show me your budget, and I’ll show you what you value, right? Well, Juventus have placed a valuation on Vlahovic that far exceeds anyone else on the team, even though you won’t find a single soul arguing that Vlahovic is the most valuable player on Juventus or even in the top three to five since joining the Bianconeri.
Now, Vlahovic clearly has the potential to be the best player on Juventus, and there are times when he shows that quality. But when Juve have invested 70 million euros in a transfer fee and roughly 100 million euros in wages and bonuses, the return they’ve received on their investment is paltry.
Vlahovic has scored 36 goals in his last three full seasons with Juve, and his relatively subpar average of 12 goals per season is buoyed by 16 in the 2023/24 campaign and flanked by a disappointing 10 goals on either end of that.
While most teams would be fine with a striker who scores 12 goals in a season, that is an awful return for a Juventus striker, especially someone making that kind of money. When a striker’s wages in millions of euros per year are 10+ million higher than their goal count in league play per season, that’s a cause for concern.
At no point in his Juventus tenure has Vlahovic shown the availability, consistency, end product, and even mental awareness on the pitch of a world-class striker, let alone someone playing at an even average level for Juve.
If Vlahovic were so convincing and not a mirage from his Fiorentina days who couldn’t make the step up in competition, then Juve wouldn’t be going after Kolo Muani and David – two notable strikers in European football – in 2025 and letting Vlahovic enter the season on an expiring contract.
The case for him being underrated
I’ve lit into Dusan Vlahovic and Juventus, by extension, a little bit in the case for why he is overrated, and I did that because, ultimately, I’d like to make the case that he may actually be underrated.
Vlahovic’s struggles with Juve can’t be taken out of the context of the team’s overall struggles. Simply put, Juve have been a dysfunctional revolving door of coaches – all of whom have left pretty quickly after being hired, with Max Allegri honestly only lasting as long as he did because of a ridiculous buyout in his contract.
No attacking player at Juventus has found sustained success at the club under Allegri, Thiago Motta, or now Igor Tudor, who is merely a placeholder Juve have extended full-time out of convenience.
Juve have a host of transfer flops who have all played worse than Vlahovic, and while the Serbian striker is the most overpaid of the bunch when comparing his output, it’s hard to say he’s the most overrated when he has received the most targeted criticism of any player.
Vlahovic is the victim of expectations and fee, but he’s still been Juve’s best goal-scorer and, alongside Kenan Yildiz, one of the only bits of quality in the attack. Fans love to go after the highest-paid player or the biggest name and harp on the problems, but how many remember his glorious runs off the ball or touches wasted by teammates? Or his beautiful free kicks?
The same traits we saw from Vlahovic in Firenze have actually been in display with the Old Lady. He has a silky touch, incredible athleticism, got into better shape for the Juve move, and has great technique and finishing (which those free kicks can attest).
Vlahovic isn’t overrated, insofar as he is overpaid, and he is overpaid because Juve have not been able to replicate the production he had across 1.5 seasons with Fiorentina. And given Fiorentina had less talent than Juve but also fewer underperforming players, the common denominator among every highly-paid, disappointing attacker at Juve is the fact that they play for Juve.
So is Vlahovic overrated? No. It’s more than Juventus are, well, a poorly-run organization that makes silly decisions year after year, and whereas everyone else among the top brcket in Serie A has had a run at the title in the last five years, Juve remain fighting for scraps in the bottom of the Champions League fight. That’s not on Dusan/
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling.