Why Matthijs de Ligt's move to Juventus sets a new and youthful tone for the Italian club

It wasn’t the image many expected but is all a part of the image that Juventus are trying to change.

For much of the last few months, many of those connected to Matthijs de Ligt – not to mention those at Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain – felt the teenager would eventually end up at Barcelona. But there ended up being a huge stumbling block.

Barcelona knew they just weren’t going to match the salary demands. So, being a Mino Raiola client, he went to a club that would.

Little wonder we had the very-modern-football spectacle of the Juve supporters chanting the agent’s name on Tuesday. Little wonder some – admittedly those connected to Barcelona – are comparing the deal to Romelu Lukaku’s transfer to Manchester United, when the striker actually wanted to go to Chelsea.

There’s also the argument that, even from a financial perspective, the move is somewhat short-sighted. As Antoine Griezmann eventually realised, the marketing money any star can make at Barcelona dwarfs any difference in salary at another club, bar Real Madrid or maybe United.

But that is also precisely the wider significance of this deal and why it’s about more than money.

Juventus are not just buying De Ligt because they’ve offered more, but because they’ve sold him a vision.

They have explained to him how they are trying to build a new identity as a “millennial club”, where all the best youngsters in the world will want to play. They want to radiate a spark.

Key to this is the realisation that they remain way behind Barcelona and Madrid in terms of appeal, and that something needs to change for them to get to that level. This is also why they’ve appointed Maurizio Sarri.

Just winning, at the very top end of the game, is no longer enough. And it’s certainly not enough if you’re winning with no real excitement or edge.

And how else to describe Juve’s generally predictable procession to the Serie A title every season? That doesn’t create a buzz around the club. It creates an element of boredom.

Appointments like Sarri, and signings like De Ligt, are part of a grand plan to change this.

The idea is to foster an image of youthful vigour around Juventus, so young people are attracted to them and young players want to join them.

In that regard, the signing is arguably more important – in terms of the long-term impact – than that of Cristiano Ronaldo, who of course told De Ligt he should join Juventus.

The Portuguese is at the other side of his career and specifically picked Juve partly because his very career and football greatness counter-intuitively limited his options.

De Ligt, however, is at the start of his career and had his pick of clubs because they all knew they’d effectively be sorting their central defence for the next 10 years.

His decision to join Juventus thereby sets a new tone, a design, and they hope a trend.

In the more immediate term, it’s going to be just as telling how the trend of his career develops.

De Ligt is going to a club that is synonymous with the great traditional centre-halves. He has many of their attribute but is still a very modern defender. He’s come up through the Ajax school, where ball-playing is as important to defenders as ball-winning, even if it is an area he still has to work on.

One of the reasons that Barca are seen as the best possible option for players is that the club – beyond its status and place in a competitive league, electrified by one of the great rivalries in football – is renowned for providing the best possible education. That goes even deeper for a player that has come up through the same philosophy of football.

So, De Ligt is rejecting to all that, at a key point in his development, to join a club that is now trying to develop that philosophy of football under Sarri.

There is a much bigger picture here, even if it took the basics of the financial offer to help bring him to Juventus.