Open conversazione

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Totti is an awful lot more useful to Roma at this point than The Waterboy was to Juve when they decided not to offer him a renewal.

[DCGweez]

One might argue that was the case all along.

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So that's Balotelli out of the Juve-Milan game in a couple of weeks.

[DCGweez]

Congrats on your offsides goal. Second in 3 weeks. Same ol' Serie A.

[red]

Solid enough performance from Juve.

Stayed focused, didn't over-commit and got the goal.

Mind you, it would have been quite hard to over-commit given how negatively Torino played.

Feel a bit sorry for the Torino fans after that one, with their tactics reminding me of various Aberdeen-Celtic games. You show up feeling you've got a chance to put pressure on the superior team, and instead the coach plays in such a fashion that clearly suggests he is hoping for nothing more than to sneak a 0-0. While watching the game you just have a feeling that you are doing nothing more than waiting for your team to lose.

Torino are a cautious team at the best of times, but I thought they might at least have left someone else up with Cerci to allow themselves half a chance of retaining the ball and threatening on the break. Or perhaps had the odd five-minute burst in the game where they tried to press Juve and up the tempo. Or maybe even opened up and tried to attack as soon as they went behind instead of waiting until the final two minutes.

Anyway, jolly nice of Torino to not make Juve work too hard before their CL game.

[RomaShield27]

Yeah, nice offside goal, fucko's.

Forza Torino!

Tevez: 'Immobile nearly broke ankle'
Sunday September 29 2013 / http://www.football-italia.net/40055/te ... roke-ankle

Carlos Tevez and Juventus hit back at Torino via Twitter, as the Derby della Mole continues via social media. The game ended 1-0 to the Bianconeri today with a Paul Pogba goal that should’ve been ruled offside.

Torino released a statement on their club website this evening attacking Coach Antonio Conte and comments on the refereeing decisions.

Tevez hit back on Twitter with this picture of his swollen and bloody ankle, an injury caused by Ciro Immobile’s tackle.

“We always win with help, so that’ll be why someone who nearly breaks my ankle only gets a yellow card...” wrote the striker.

Juventus also responded to Torino counting the possession statistics by listing some of their own.

“Effectively we’re not good at mathematics. But we can count to 0, like the number of shots on target Torino had!”

The official Torino account then replied directly to that tweet: “Don’t knock yourselves down. You managed to count to 31 (oops, 29).”

This is referring to the ‘official’ count of 29 Scudetti won by Juve, though they continue to include the two that were stripped in the Calciopoli scandal.

[Bagg10]

[Bagg10]

Poor showing today. These guys need show their desire to win all 90 minutes of the game, not just when we go down a goal. Both goals we conceded were avoidable, the first one was a stupid mistake by Bonucci, and I think the second goal was the result of our CBs being too used to have 2 other CBs alongside them.

I can't wait until Pepe is healthy, so we can try a 4-3-3 with him and Tevez on the wings. 3-5-2 doesn't seem to work in CL. Especially when we don't have wingbacks that can send a decent cross in.

[red]

The desire is there, but they just aren't playing well just now.

There isn't the intelligence of movement of the ball or the intelligence of movement off-the-ball that there has been at certain other times, I don't think.

The first goal is straightforward enough and just one of those things that happens every so often.

The second goal wasn't the fault of the centre halves, but of Isla for not understanding that Juve only had two central defenders, so he had to occupy a fairly orthodox right back position. Really a stunning lack of game intelligence on his part to be caught out like that. I would also attach some of the blame to Vidal for not taking up a deep starting position immediately after Juve had scored. The players have to have the awareness to take responsibility in these situations and understand that Juve didn't have a balanced team out at that point, so they had to make sure and play responsibly.

The lack of good crossers is a key issue just now, particularly since Conte seems to be putting the emphasis on getting the wing backs up into crossing positions, rather than looking for the penetration to come from runners from central midfield as had often been the case before.

Result still isn't the end of the world for Juve. Just means there is a fair chance they'll need to win in Istanbul in the last game.

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Rather odd game, as it's quite hard to figure out how there came to be five goals scored.

Juve, while undoubtedly making mistakes, really are in an extraordinarily unlucky run in terms of the goals they are conceding. Milan never really looked capable of hurting Juve. They created one real chance in the game, missed it, and somehow scored two goals.

Not that Juve did as much as you would typically expect of a team who scored three goals. I can only really remember Quagliarella's miss in the first half as a clear chance they created from open play, aside from Giovinco's goal.

Though Milan didn't look capable of hurting Juve, Juve did look capable of shooting themselves in the foot. Juve passing was pretty dire and they got themselves in trouble a few times because of it. Was one of those games that I wish at been at rather than watching on TV because - when Juve were struggling to keep possession deep in their own half and playing risky passes in tight spaces - I wanted to see whether Juve's forwards were moving properly to offer the option for Juve to play a bit longer.

Not that that necessarily would have worked because Juve's forwards weren't making a good job of making the ball stick when it was played up to them.

Milan, after leaving their full backs too wide in the early stages and allowing space for Tevez to attack the space down the sides of the centre backs, did a decent job of blocking up the middle of the pitch and making it difficult for Juve to play through them. However, in blocking up the middle of the pitch, they were leaving a lot of space down the flanks that Juve didn't do enough to take advantage of.

However, there were positive signs for Juve, in comparison to some recent performances. Some of the movement off-the-ball was much better than it has been, though this wasn't always terribly apparent due to the passing often not being good enough for Juve to make something of the good movement.

Juve's pressing was also very good at times (think it created the situations for at least two of the goals). Wasn't headless chicken pressing, either. Juve would block off all Milan's good passing options, then they would really step forward and apply pressure once they had made sure Milan really had nowhere to go. Now this was easier to do since Milan didn't have a talented passer at the back or deep in midfield, but Juve still executed it nicely.

[DCGweez]

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Well, I thought Juve did precious little wrong in that game for the first hour of it - could only really criticise them for not getting the third goal at the start of the second half when they had the chance.

Everything was going smoothly, everyone was playing reasonably well and Fiorentina didn't look remotely capable of hurting Juve.

Even to the point Fiorentina got level I felt Juve had done little wrong. The first goal came from the break of the ball on the edge of the box and the second from a speculative shot that deviated awkwardly at the last moment.

But then Juve went to pieces.

There just doesn't seem to be the resilience to deal with adversity that there has been from them in the last couple of seasons. Instead they just seem terribly fragile.

Some of this will have come from Juve conceding some pretty unfortunate goals so far this season, but they need to figure out a way to re-find their belief that they can keep clean sheets and contain opponents.

Not that one can really suggest solutions to these sort of mental issues when looking at things from the outside.

[red]

Not much to fault in Juve's performance there.

They've played an excellent half of football where they at least matched Real Madrid, but the second half was then an irrelevance, though Juve did reasonably well in it.

Liked the 4-3-3/4-5-1 system. Had a nice balance about it and made sure Juve always had good passing options. Juve were able to take Real Madrid on higher up the pitch than they could have if they'd been playing the 3-5-2/5-3-2, I think, which had to be viewed as a good thing given how Juve have been defending recently. There was the odd issue in the first half of Vidal and Pogba getting up into postions that would be fine if they had three centre backs behind them, but with it just being Pirlo and two centre backs, it left Juve looking a bit exposed and vulnerable.

First goal came from a collective error from Juve. There wasn't enough pressure on Di Maria to make pushing up a good idea. The defence should have held its position deeper so that there would have been less space for the ball in behind. However, when the run is that well timed, it is extremely hard to defend against when playing zonally. I would have liked to see someone marking Ronaldo and tracking the run, but that's not how Juve (or anyone else these days, it seems) choose to defend.

Still, Juve reacted very well and played an excellent twenty minutes of football where they took control of the game, created lots of dangerous situations and scored an excellent goal.

Then came the second Real Madrid goal from nothing when Juve were on top and in control. Now, I won't dispute that it was silly and unnecessary of Chiellini to hold Ramos like that, but there's no way I'd have given a penalty because Ramos never in a position where he could possible have got to the ball. Different matter if Chiellini's holding is actually stopping Ramos when he has a genuine chance to go and attack the ball.

That knocked Juve back a little and Real Madrid stepped up their pressing a little, which put Juve in a couple of uncomfortable spots, but nothing overly serious and Juve saw the half out relatively comfortably.

And then the game was over. I didn't even think it was a foul, so how you can give a straight red for that is beyond me.

Think the only players I would critice are Ogbonna and Tevez.

Ogbonna looked uncomfortable and a bit cumbersome, but that may just be down to playing in a relatively unfamiliar position and not having played much recently, which meant he was never going to look sharp.

Tevez started the game well, but I think he pretty much disappeared after Real's second goal. Then the real problem came when he was moved to centre forward after the red card. He was far too static. He was neither dropping short to get the ball to feet to Juve retain possession nor running in behind or into the channels to try and push Real back and help Juve get up the field and give the defence a bit of a rest. Seeing how Tevez played, I think Llorente can feel pretty unfortunate to have been the one substituted, as he was doing well.

[RomaShield27]

Juve played well i thought, in fact I would say they were much the better team over the course of the game, playing the better football and controlling the tempo. Even when down to 10 men they were on top.

Red, how can u say there's no way you'd have given a penalty for that? What does it matter if Ramos could have gotten the ball or not? It is still a foul, in the box. Nowhere in the rulebook does it state your allowed to hold an opposing player like that, and so its clearly a foul. Whats the problem? Far too often Italian referees don't give them. In fact, I would go so far as say its not just referees, but the general mentality toward situations like this in Italy, that this sort of holding and grabbing is ok in the box. Its not, and the sooner the authorities impose the rules properly the better.

What do you all think of the Vidal dive? He's getting a lot of stick about it this morning. Its ironic, all the headlines this morning are along the lines 'Real beat Juve with 2 Ronaldo goals + Vidal shameful dive', whereas if anything, it was Ronaldo's shameful playacting which turned the course of the game, and Vidal actually went and put in a monster display in midfield.



As for the 'dive', while it looked ridiculous, i don't think it was a dive. Look at the pictures of when he got clipped by the defender - which i presume is what he was protesting about - that could easily put you off when you in the motion of swinging your foot for a shot, and i imagine why he went on to boot the ground. Im not saying I would give a peno for it, but i can see why it happened. It kind of reminds me of the De Rossi incident in the 2010 WC were some say he dived – in realtime in looked like he just flew onto the ground in full speed, but in actuality he got his achilles stood on which can be very painful.

Its a shameful sport we support. Players like Ronaldo blatantly dive and cheat all the time yet get all the praise for being such a skillful player and is the role model for thousands of kids, while that same mentality immediately leads people to playing the blame game for incidents like this one and labeling someone as a diver.

[Lombardiamia]

I'm so terribly sorry that Juve got fucked up by a ref...

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[p_maldini_3]

i agree with red, even though chiellini was stupid to give the ref a reason to call a pk, those are called one in a thousand times. with respect to ramos being nowhere near the ball, on corners, refs hardly ever watch the ball, so it's never a factor.

i do think this incident partially exonerates mexes for donkey punching chiellini the other day. chiellini is a cunt on corners (ask cavani) and mexes just gave what he got.

[juventino_italiano]

http://www.football-italia.net/41013/ue ... l-juve-ref

It's little consolation...but good to know this bozo wont be around to screw up other games.

2 video replays here might have made some difference here....I'm not saying both decision would have been overturned, but it would have given the officiating team a better perspective to make their decisions.

[Bagg10]

Yeah, i was of the impression that the player need to be in a position to score for it to be a penalty. And Im ok with giving a penalty in that situation if Ramos has any chance of getting to that ball, but he was nowhere near it. But even then, I can accept that call because Ive seen them given, albeit rarely. However, the Chiellini red card was disgraceful, both on the part of Ronaldo and the ref. Chiellini extended his arm in an effort to protect possession of the ball (which he didn't quite have yet), and you clearly see that Ronaldo's arm movement while he's running pushes Chiellini's arm a little higher, but I don't think he even touched his face. It might have been a foul for obstruction,but not even worthy of a yellow let alone a straight red.

[red]

Wasn't exactly a pretty or convincing performance from Juve, but it was a good win.

Parma are an awkward side and it would have been all too easy for Juve to drop points there with the Real Madrid game in midweek.

Juve's attacking play is badly stunted whenever Lichtsteiner isn't playing as no-one else can provide the sort of penetration he is capable of on the right side, so when you add to that Juve having an attacking pair that offered little or nothing for extended periods of the game, it was going to be pretty tough for them to create much by way of clear chances.

Still, I thought the defending was much better than I've seen in for a while. There was one dangerous situation in the first half when Padoin tucked in too far and one in the second half when Chiellini made a poor effort at stopping Biabiany, but that's not bad against a pretty dangerous attack.

Juve generally seemed more compact and the intensity and level of aggression of their defending seemed better to me.

Once Juve get back to defending properly, they can start to worry about playing better going forward.

Would be interested to know the thinking behind playing Vidal deep and Pogba higher up. Not going to suggest it's wrong, but I'd like to know what Conte's reasons are - particularly given how many people have Pogba pencilled in for the deep role in midfield post-Pirlo.

Thought Barzagli was very good.