Open conversazione

[Bagg10]

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Tremendous spell of play from Juve until they got their second goal and finished the tie.

Trabzon were clearly poor (and I consider it negligent on their coach's part to not find a way to avoid being out-flanked every time Juve attacked), but it was a very strong burst of play with great intensity and some very good movement of the ball and movement off the ball.

Ideal way to play that game to avoid undue stress prior to playing Milan.

Thought Marchisio was very good and it's interesting to see Giovinco and Isla threatening to look like useful players again.

[juventino_italiano]

Conte is starting to piss me off.
Good coach and has done well with this Juve side, but I'm sick of him trying to pick fights with everyone.

Why can't he keep his mouth shut and just keep working towards achieving his and Juve's goals.

I haven't agreed with his outbursts yet....
Wishing he'd shut the fuck up for once

[Bagg10]

What did he say?

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Thought Milan put on an excellent display of how to play against Juve in the first half of that game.

When Milan had possession they pushed Pazzini right up onto Bonucci and had Poli on Pirlo. They also then tried to switch the play quickly enough to pull Juve wide and open up spaces for them to attack. This asked awkward questions of Juve as to how to avoid leaving Pirlo and Bonucci exposed, but also not leave themselves exposed in wider areas. Juve never found an answer to those problems and were obviously very fortunate to not be behind at the point they pinched a goal at the end of the half.

When Juve had the ball, Milan had Poli on Pirlo and other players pressing. The pressing high up the pitch wasn't fantastically organised or intense, but what Milan did very well was to have Montolivo and De Jong blocking Juve from playing easy balls up to Llorente and Tevez.

It was only when Juve showed the willingness to get midfield runners high up the pitch that they could find a way to trouble Milan. First on the goal when Marchisio went in behind when the forwards were offering short and in the second half when Juve used the midfield runners to try and draw Montolivo and De Jong away from their blocking positions to allow balls to be played directly up to Tevez and Llorente.

I don't think Juve ever really found a way to tactically contain Milan's attacking threats, but the psychological impact on Milan of having played so well and put so much into the first half only to be behind at halftime was enough to take a lot of the sting out of Milan in the second half.

I believe the way for Juve to have counteracted Milan's play in the first half would have been to twist their system towards a 4-4-1-1/4-4-1.

It could have clarified resposibilities and provided better balance between covering Pirlo and covering the flanks.



That just leaves the weakness on Lichtsteiner's flank and you have to decide if Tevez tracks Emanuelson when he moves forward or if Tevez drops into midfield to allow Pogba to move wider.

This is an ongoing issue of the awkward matchup between 3-5-2 and 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 teams. I think Juve need to find a way to adjust and play a back four at times.

Anyway, it was impressive that Juve found a way to win the game. Certainly one of the matches this season where the value of Juve upgrading their forwards has been shown.

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Juve just about deserved that win on the strength of the first-half performance.

They controlled that period of the game very well. Got into good positions and, though they didn't create a clear chance, they created several half chances and merited the goal when it came. Juve also risked very little in that half as the balance of the team was right and there weren't silly lapses in possession to give away counter-attacks.

Liked how in that half Juve shuffled their system towards a back four a lot of the time when Fiorentina had possession. Barzagli tended to play Vargas and that freed Lichtsteiner to play higher and close down Pasqual. With Lichtsteiner higher up the pitch, Vidal was then able to focus more on the centre of the pitch than covering wide, as he often has to. Combine that with Marchisio playing instead of Pirlo and it made for a very strong midfield unit that Fiorentina were having to face when they had the ball.

Juve dropped off in the second half, though, and went back to playing a more orthodox 3-5-2 (5-3-2) shape. Fiorentina still weren't putting Juve under a great deal of pressure, but Juve looked considerably less convincing than they did in the first half. Also thought Juve rather fell into the trap of just using possession as a means to slow the game and deprive Fiorentina of the ball. That's fine if you can do it well, but I tend to think it leads to teams becoming overly casual and losing focus, rather than showing the intensity they typically would in possession if they had some interest in using the possession to create chances.

[juventino_italiano]

[DavidP]

god damn. fuck asamoah. fuck serie a. everyone shits their pants when playing fucking rubentus. you must be the worst team ever to be steamrolling this league.

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[juventino_italiano]

Ban the Drughi (juve ultras) from everything.
Start with them and then move on to other trouble making ultra groups.
These groups are mainly composed of thugs that are fucked up in the head

[DCGweez]

Ban the Scirea family. They are sick the way they don't want Anti-Semetic and Racist chants at matches. They are trying to steal the identity of Juve.

Next they won't want Juve to buy refs and then they'll have results like they do in Europe where they are exposed as average.

It's quite clear that the Scirea family are all that's wrong with Calcio.

[Bagg10]

I don't understand why Conte didn't didn't use this line-up for Sundays game, and our starters today. He did the same thing with Roma, and it cost us the game there too.

[maro]

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Thought Juve were playing a fine game, were in control and heading for a pretty tidy win until Caceres and Ogbonna decided to cock things up.

[zafferano]

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Ropey start where Juve didn't react well to Fiorentina pressing and trying to force a high tempo, with Juve making poor errors. Juve them calmed down, took control and played a pretty decent game.

They may not have been cutting Fiorentina open, but they were in control of the game and consistently getting into good situations. It was largely down to poor decision making from Juve that so few clear chances were created.

But the concentration and intensity was good and Juve didn't look like giving Fiorentina chances after that opening burst.

Was interesting how Fiorentina shaped up. I'd assumed it would be 3-5-2 from the players they picked, but it was a back four and Vargas trying to beef up their midfield. That worked okay in as much as it was hard for Juve to find time and space in meaningful areas, but Fiorentina's system severely restricted Cuadrado's attacking opportunities. I'd have wanted to give him more freedom and see if he could get the chance to use his pace on the break as Juve pushed up looking for a goal.

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Fairly sloppy performance from Juve, even if it is somewhat understandable given that the players can't be in great shape just now.

Juve never looked capable of hurting Parma from open play. It was all too slow and lacking in penetration. Key players like Vidal and Lichtsteiner weren't showing the usual inclination to burst forward to break lines or create space for others.

So Juve were reduced to threatening from quick breaks when Parma lost possession in dangerous areas, which is how the two goals came about.

Once Juve were ahead and had realised they didn't look like threatening Parma, they fell into the trap of having nothingy casual possession and risked letting Parma back into the game from a silly error in possession.

Not a new error, but this over-covering the centre of the pitch is something that Juve need to deal with. Both the goal and the late chance Parma had came from Juve pulling too many people into the middle of the box when defending a cross. You've got three centre-halves - how many more people do you need to defend a standard crosss?

Either Vidal or Lichtsteiner has to be out closer to Molinaro for the goal and Isla has to avoid getting sucked in so narrow on the late chance.

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Pretty poor stuff.

Juve fell into the trap of semi adjusting to Napoli and they ended up playing in a nothingy fashion.

It was always going to be an awkward tactical match-up for Juve, but they needed to either properly commit to playing there own game - dominating the midfield to such an extent that Napoli's advantage on the wings wouldn't be a major issue - or they had to fully adapt to taking on Napoli, which would have involved a tweaking of the shape to get an extra man in a wider position.

As it was, Juve went in between. Vidal and Pogba sort of drifted wide, but not enough to stop Napoli dominating the flanks, but they were pulled deep enough and wide enough that Juve didn't have the presence in the middle of the pitch to harrass Inler and Jorginho to try and stop them dictating the game.

It was only in the second half that Juve adjusted - by pushing the right wing-back high up the pitch and keeping the midfielders more central - that Juve were able to impose themselves on the game and push Napoli back a bit. Juve had enough control to get into quite a few good positions, but the final ball or decision was never good enough to actually create a real chance.

For all Napoli were the better side, their goals came at points where Juve were actually doing okay. The first goal came after Juve had weathered the early pressure and were looking relatively comfortable and the second goal, while clearly avoidable, is one there is always the possibility of conceding when you are pushing for a goal. Don't know if Chiellini's absence mattered on the first goal. Even if it did, these things go against you now and then over the course of a season.

All in all, not good, but nothing that's really terribly concerning for Juve.

[DCGweez]