Juventus crisis deepens after Champions League humiliation at Maccabi Haifa

Juan Cuadrado was still protesting, arms spread out, to the referee, when Maccabi Haifa set off, purposefully, to seal their upstart triumph.

By the time Cuadrado turned his mind back to his work, a counter-attack, launched when he was dispossessed on halfway by Pierre Cornud, was just about to bear spectacular fruit, Omer Atzili rifling his second goal of the night past Wojciech Szczesny.

Juventus’s 2-0 defeat in Israel on Tuesday all but terminates the Italian club’s Champions League interest for the season, and following hot on the heels of a loss by the same scoreline against AC Milan, a result that left them eighth in a domestic table they have spent most of the last decade routinely leading, it plunges the club into deep crisis.

Some context here: Maccabi Haifa are ranked 111th on the Uefa club coefficient table, a metric based on recent European performances and the strength of a club’s domestic league.

Juventus are ranked eighth. Cuadrado has won five Serie A titles, a Premier League and played at two World Cups. Cornud, a journeyman full-back from France had never played in a top division anywhere until July, when he joined Maccabi, champions of Uefa’s 20th ranked league, 16 places behind Serie A.

By half-time, Juventus were already trailing by two goals, and Szczesny had also watched a thumping free-kick from Tjaronn Chery, the Surinam international, ricochet off his crossbar.

Just before Juve went into the break, Dusan Vlahovic was hitting the turf in anger, after his header had been kept out by Josh Cohen, Maccabi’s alert and elastic-limbed goalkeeper.

If Cuadrado and Vlahovic, Juventus’ €70 million January recruit, felt exasperated and impotent, think of the more distant bystanders to Juve’s spiral