Juventus: Predicting goals and assists leaders for 2020-2021

Who will lead Juventus in the two biggest statistical categories next season?

Cristiano Ronaldo joined Juventus and immediately scored 31 goals in Serie A for the Bianconeri in his first season in Turin. He’s as safe of a bet as there is to lead the club in goals again next season, as he remains one of the world’s foremost goal-scorers.

But who could finish off the list behind him? Last season, Paulo Dybala scored 11 goals for Juve in 2,165 minutes as the team’s second-best scorer. Dybala is only getting better and should play even more minutes in 2020-2021, so 20 goals is within reason for him. That’d be almost twice the number of goals, but La Joya is absolutely good enough to do that.

There will also be goals on the table for the new No. 9, as Gonzalo Higuain scored eight times in 2019-2020. Luis Suarez offers the most goal-scoring upside, but Edin Dzeko also found the back of the net 16 times at Roma last season. Even Edinson Cavani, who is more like Plan C, could score more goals than Higuain in 2020-2021.

It will be even more difficult to predict the assist leaders for Juventus. Miralem Pjanic is gone after  finishing second in assists, and neither Arthur Melo nor Weston McKennie seem to have the playmaking skills (yet). But they are even more attacking and could have more assists than Rodrigo Bentancur, who quietly led the team with seven assists in 2019-2020.

Paulo Dybala could lead Juventus in assists

Juve’s superstar attackers Dybala and Ronaldo had six and five assists, respectively. Since they are the primary scorers, it’s hard to expect them to provide more table-setting for Juventus. Juan Cuadrado also had five assists from the right, mostly playing as a right back in a 4-3-3.

Cuadrado should play a more attacking role in 2020-2021, though. Andrea Pirlo may be moving to a three-man defense, which would put Cuadrado at wing back. And Cuadrado should play at right back more than Federico Bernardeschi, who could be sold or moved to left wing back. Cuadrado is a great chance-creator, so he’s a real candidate to lead in assists.

Ultimately, Bentancur is the favorite by virtue of the carry-over to next season, but Dybala is the sleeper. He’s an underrated creator and provides far more importance to Juventus than just goal-scoring, hence why he was named the team’s MVP despite scoring 20 fewer goals than Ronaldo.

So Ronaldo as the leading scorer, Dybala in second with the most assists. The superstar players will be crucial in Turin again, but Cuadrado, Bentancur, Arthur, and the new striker will all have their roles to play.