Open conversazione

[DCGweez]

[RomaShield27]

[DCGweez]

http://forzaitalianfootball.com/2014/04 ... alciopoli/

[Bagg10]

April fools

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While there was clearly an awful lot wrong with that Juve performance, it was a good exercise for them in terms of gaining experience in two-legged knockout football. Very awkward to get the balance right as an away team when you are playing a decent side who are determined to play as negatively as Lyon did.

I thought Juve got their approach about right. 0-0 wouldn't have been a bad result, so there was no reason to go committing too many men high up the pitch and risk getting caught on the break. That was particularly true in the first half when there really was no space and so Juve were't likely to gain from taking risks. In the second half the game opened up a little around the time Vucinic came on and Juve did pretty well in exploiting the spaces that appeared and really should have scrored before they did.

That said, if you go into the details of the Juve performance, it was very poor - particularly in the first half.

The movement from the midfield five and the front two was virtually non-existent. If you are being man-marked, you need to try and rotate the positions of players to ask questions of the markers to see if they are prepared to leave their zone to keep marking and to see if players switching positions can create some confusion. Even if markers couldn't be lost, you should be able to manipulate the opposition to enable you to create a one-on-one situation somewhere in a bit of space. That should have been easy to do wide (though Juve's wingbacks aren't terribly likely to beat a man one-on-one) and should have been possible to create in a more central area with Pogba or Tevez if Juve had shown a little more guile.

However, you could argue that the movement required to open things up would have left Juve more exposed and that may not have been a risk they were willing to take in the circumstances and I wouldn't particularly criticise them for that, though I would still suggest they could have done a lot more without risking much.

Felt sorry for Bonucci in the first half. He ended up looking bad with how few of his passes were coming off, but the players in front of him were moving so poorly that he barely had a target to hit.

Anyway, it's a good result for Juve and should be enough to see them through.

On a side note, (almost) regardless of allegiance, I do love to see a team who have played an incredibly negative game lose to a late goal.

[DCGweez]

Serious question, if Conte wants a crazy amount of money to stay, would you Juventini be open to letting him go and getting Mancini? Both are more than capable table managers and seem to not to be able to replicate that in Europe.

He also has much better hair than Conte.

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There haven't been enough 'failures' in Europe to write Conte off the way Mancini has been written off.

And you can be sure Mancini wouldn't ask for much less money than Conte.

[DCGweez]

You don't think? They look a different team to me when playing in Europe the last few years and really they've crashed out of 5 competitions rather spectacularly in most cases.

I'm not sure how much is keeping the eye on the prize of Serie A and just talk but he should be all in for Europe. I think that's far more important for him as a manager and Juve as a team than 3 in a row. I understand what 3 in a row would mean in Italy but i think that's short-sighted.

Either way they just look disjointed in Europe and rarely get any "flow" to the game. His "big" games in Serie A have left much to be desired as well as of late.

I still think he's done a marvelous job at Juve and his point total this year shouldn't be dismissed but I understand some disappointment from Juve fans.

[juventino_italiano]

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This is their second go at playing in Europe under Conte.

Last season they did fine only to come up against an exceptionally strong Bayern, so I certainly didn't see that as a failure in Europe.

This season has to go down as a failure unless they win the EL.

I still don't think Conte did much wrong in the CL this season.

Going through the group games:

Copenhagen (A) - created enough chances to score about seven and only scored one - 1-1
Gala (H) - sluggish performance, but only failed to win due to two huge individual defensive errors - 2-2
Real Madrid (A, H) - two decent performances and games that could have gone either way - 1-2, 2-2
Copenhagen (H) - comfortable win - 3-1
Gala (A) - circumstances of the game means I wouldn't read anything much into it - 0-1

Then you've had a poor performance at home against Trabzon, a good performance away against Trabzon and two decent performances against Fiorentina.

So I don't think they've played badly in Europe under Conte. They may not have been brilliant, but they have consistently had a good level of control in games and create enough chances that they could/should have won games.

I think they need to develop a secondary formation to play against strong teams with wingers, as 3-5-2 (5-3-2) team struggle against that in general. Far more teams play with wingers in Europe than in Serie A, so that is an issue they need to look at. The suggestion is that Juve are looking to sign a winger that would allow them to switch between 3-5-2 and 4-3-3 like they did in Conte's first season.

So I've no major issues with Conte in Europe just now. Next season will be important, though. Juve should complete three scudetti in a row this year and that should be followed by be absolutely focused on doing as well as possible in the CL. A decent mercato and a couple of lessons learnt and there's no reason Juve shouldn't do well next season.

[DCGweez]

Completely agree on the secondary formation. He needs some tactical flexibility.

As for the group results, if he gets the credit when the players perform surely it's his fault when they fail, no? I'm not giving you a hard time but if i said Conte is awful it's just been Tevez's individual brilliance this year i don't think i'd get away with it.

That team was the second most talented in the group and should have done better.

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[RomaShield27]

[DCGweez]

You don't have to admit it, i just want you to know who the true champions were this year:

URL=http://s166.photobucket.com/user/dcguida/media/Bl1JNxUCAAA5_lX_zps64ad984f.jpg.html][/URL]

[DavidP]

can't say sassuolo deserved anything from this game. rube gave them enough chances to have scored 3 or 4 in the first hour. unfortunately their decision making in the final 3rd was of serie b quality.

[juventino_italiano]

Zaza had a good game, Ogbonna had a terrible game....
Which one was it or was it a little of both?

[DavidP]

yeah, i though zaza was man of the match yesterday. it was a shame that he got more favors from ogbonna than he did from his teammates.

[DCGweez]

Useless. Couldn't do a single good thing for Serie A. Not a single one.

[juventino_italiano]

[DCGweez]

Are you French? I hope you're not American, Italian or Australian i'd hate to think any country i have ties to would produce such a nebbishy defeatist.

As for Roma, first off don't present opinions as facts. Also Roma isn't the one the F'd over Serie A in the first place. Juventus has been the bastian of thieves, cheats and fair-weathered fans for as long as i've been alive.

Serie A will be fine, the BPL was in much worse shape not all that long ago. Roma have a strong Footy Culture and good historical ties with S. American players.