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TURIN, Italy -- Exhaustion is starting to set in at Juventus as the season continues, with cracks appearing in the five-time reigning champion.Like most of the top teams in Europe, Juventus is battling on two fronts -- its domestic league and the Champions League -- while most of its players are also involved with their national teams.The Bianconeri appeared on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League knockout stages with two matches to spare on Wednesday before conceding a late goal to draw 1-1 at home to Lyon.There was a clear difference in our performance in both halves, Juventus midfielder Stefano Sturaro said. Its down to different factors, not least the fact that were coming off a very intense period, with many direct battles.Its OK for there to be a drop, it happens. We have had six matches in the past two weeks -- and very important ones at that.Juventus won most of those matches, but it surprisingly lost 1-0 at AC Milan on Oct. 22 and struggled at times during a 2-1 victory over Napoli last weekend.Its fans, spoiled by brilliant attacking football over the past few seasons, are beginning to get frustrated. Jeers could be heard toward the end of the match against Lyon.The fans can do what they want, Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said. I understand them because they always want a spectacle, but if they still want to be in the Champions League in March, they have to accept these moments in which you have to use your heads. Thats what will allow you to fight for your goals until the end.Allegri was more direct on Twitter, where he wrote: You dont win tournaments by playing 100 miles an hour in November: Lets get through the group and then well think about the rest.Not only has Juventus played several intense matches in a short time, but it has had to do so with many of the same players as the squad has been affected by injuries.However, veteran defender Patrice Evra said the problem was more psychological.We could look for excuses and blame it on the fatigue, but we dont want to do that, he said. The truth is that after controlling the first half, at the end of the match, with a bit of pressure and the desire to win to go through immediately, we backed off a bit and our character dropped.Allegri cautioned that plenty of time remains until March, when the team will have to be at its best, but more was expected of Juventus following its significant offseason.It signed record-breaking forward Gonzalo Higuain from Napoli, playmaker Miralem Pjanic from Roma, winger Dani Alves from Barcelona and defender Medhi Benatia from Bayern Munich.Those additions may be part of the problem: With the new players still settling in, Juventus has failed to play as a team and has struggled to carve out goal-scoring opportunities.And, while Higuain has stood out from the start, scoring seven goals in 11 domestic matches, more was expected from Pjanic, who appears to be struggling to fit in.Juventus, which visits struggling Chievo Verona on Sunday, leads the Italian league by four points. Still, several of those victories have been in matches where the team would have been expected to do better.That success has also carried over to the Champions League. If it wins its two remaining matches in Group H, against Sevilla later this month and Dinamo Zagreb in December, it will qualify for the last 16 as the winner of its group.Juventus doesnt need to look very far for inspiration. It started out worse last season, winning just one of its opening six matches before claiming a fifth consecutive league title.Scarpa Nike Shox R4 Bianche Nere|Uomo/Donne . There are surprises among the Vezina candidates, but most of the others are standard top-tier performers, even if the two Hart Trophy runners-ups have never been quite as good as they have been through the first half of the season. Scarpe Nike Shox NZ Uomo Nere/Oro Logo . -- Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson asked his players a simple question during Fridays morning shootaround: How many of them had ever been on a team 14 games over . http://www.nikeshoxoutletitalia.it/nike-shox-r4/nike-shox-r4-donne.html .S. hockey team after paying his dues as an NHL general manager for more than three decades and giving up a lot of his free time to help USA Hockey. Scarpe Nike Shox Gravity Uomo Nere/Gola Verde/Calce Calda AR1999-003 . -- Nate Robinson has played for seven teams, so beating one of them is no longer a rare occurrence. Nike Shox R4 Donne Scarpa Nere/Rosa . The 25-year-old Japanese star has officially been posted by his club team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles.This story appears in ESPN The Magazines Dec. 12 issue. Subscribe today!The elation of the World Series is now behind us, and thus begins the season when every player joins the same team against an opponent that happens to pay them. Major League Baseball is on a tenuous 21-year streak of labor peace since the beginning of the last work stoppage, when the 1994 strike devastated the sport, destroyed the Montreal Expos and paved the way for the steroid era. Uncomfortable truths, all, but truths nevertheless.The truths of the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement (the current one expires Dec. 1) arent necessarily heroic from the selfish eye of the fan, who couldnt care less about labor unless a lockout or a strike looms. Its players vs. owners, millions vs. billions. There dont appear to be any apocalyptic issues that would stop the game, but that doesnt mean a work stoppage wont occur.The issues that would radically shape baseball for the better-determining once and for all whether the game continues down its path of everyday interleague play and, if so, whether it adds the DH to the National League or abolishes it in the American-are likely not on the table. Nor is the nonstarter of shortening the season to accommodate the increase of playoff teams (which has reduced the necessity of a 162-game season) and to avoid bad postseason weather. What is on the table is, in a sense, climate change. Baseball has slowly been trying to turn its culture closer to footballs-look at how the commissioners office has pushed for more power (see: Alex Rodriguez being suspended for a full season in 2014 during the Biogenesis scandal without failing a drug test), and witness the primacy of baseballs odious qualifying offer, which, although it might survive the negotiations, shouldnt.On its face, the qualifying offer -- which can be extended to eligible free agents who have been with a team for the entire previous season -- seems to work for everyone. It mimics the NFLs franchise tag with one major exception: Unlike NFL players, MLB players can reject it -- and they have, roundly, over its four-year existence. In football, not one of the 27 quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame was ever a healthy, in-prime unrestricted free agent. In baseball, a player who has accepted the qualifying offer would earn $17.2?million for the 2017 season and wouldd get to become an unrestricted free agent after.dddddddddddd The player makes a lot of money and puts off free agency for a year. The team, meanwhile, doesnt have to compete for its own player but isnt tied to a long-term contract. A win-win, right?Wrong. Since the inception of the new system in 2012, 64 qualifying offers have been made by teams, with only five accepted. This year Neil Walker of the Mets and Jeremy Hellickson of the Phillies accepted. The other eight players offered this year did not, aware of their worth on the open market. Yoenis Cespedes, for example, rejected the Mets qualifying offer, knowing full well some team will likely commit to him for more than one year; in turn, the Mets will receive a draft pick from whatever team signs him.The qualifying offer isnt destroying baseball, but its not helping either because it continues to expose old wounds. The sport is a $10?billion industry and yet, 41 years and untold profits later, ownership still hasnt been willing to accept the concept of player movement without some form of compensation in return. The philosophy behind free agent compensation has always been specious: that if a team loses a player to free agency, it deserves compensation for having developed the talent. The counter is more sensible: Baseball controls a drafted player until he hits six years of service time. Then that player should be free to join the marketplace to shop his services, the debt to his club paid.The gap between MLB philosophy and reality is wide. The qualifying offer is really designed to dampen free agency and depress salaries, to give teams pause before signing free agents because they dont want to lose the draft picks attached to signing one. On the other side, it discourages teams from retaining their own players with long-term deals and encourages them to acquire draft picks. A team, for example, that needs Cespedes might not sign him because it doesnt want to give up compensation, which means not doing what it takes to win. Winning, in fact, often falls a distant second to making and saving money. The pursuit of the World Series is the summer game. That game is over, giving way to the winter game: owners vs. players battling over money and control. ' ' '