Report: Juventus will not be renewing Juan Cuadrado’s contract

No matter the player, as their mid-30s arrive you know the day in which they leave Juventus is going to come sooner or later. Unless that guy is Gigi Buffon, of course, but as we know there’s only one of that breed on this earth, so a major career transition likely comes when your age starts with a “3” and ends with a “4”, “5” or “6.” It’s only natural.

That appears set for Juan Cuadrado.

The 35-year-old Cuadrado has played his final game for Juventus, according to Goal Italia’s Roemo Agresti. Cuadrado, who has been with Juve since the summer of 2015, was one of the handful of players whose contract is set to expire at the end of the month of June. But, unlike Adrien Rabiot, Cuadrado actually does appear to be leaving and, like Angel Di Maria, is seeking a new club for next season.

As Agresti wrote on Twitter, “It had been rumored for a while but a final decision has been taken: Cuadrado’s time at Juve has come to an end.”

For some, Cuadrado leaving Juventus may be coming a year too late considering how he’s played for the last couple of seasons. In what will prove to be his final two seasons in Turin — both of which under the direction of Max Allegri — he recorded six assists in a combined 66 league appearances.

The season before, under Andrea Pirlo’s watch, Cuadrado recorded 10 assists in Serie A, the only time in his career he hit double digits in assists in a single season.

Those final years were marked by inconsistency, sure, but also somebody who clearly put the shirt above his own personal success. That’s because Cuadrado got the terzino treatment from Maurizio Sarri and then Pirlo and Allegri, too, making the shift from full-time winger to fullback and then a combination of wingback and fullback depending on which formation the latter two managers used.

Cuadrado was never a big-time goal scorer during his Juventus career, but he definitely had a flair for the dramatics with more than a few late-game strikes to either tie things up or give his team the lead. He also tended to do damage against the last Italian team he played for before coming to Juventus — that would be Fiorentina. It just seemed like he had that knack for breaking those purple hearts over and over again.

But at 35 years old and playing for a club that’s very much in transition this summer, Cuadrado is one of those players that Juve will let walk on a free transfer. Rumors of potentially coming back on a reduced salary never materialized into a new deal in the same fashion as Rabiot, as Cuadrado now heads out on the free-agent market for the first time, with reported interest from Spain and possibly even Turkey coming his way.