Something is rotten in the city of Turin. Especially when Juventus play in European competitions this season. Antonio Conte’s men won the first league against Trabzonspor 2-0, and they avoided an away goal. All good right? Not really, if you watched the game.
That second goal came at the very end – and is really due to Paul Pogba being a special boy – and at one point Trabzonspor looked likely to score an equalizer. The goal was called off as the referee said – correctly, it seems to me – that the ball had gone out of play before the goal. Still it was an example of the lack of concentration and killer instinct that has haunted Juventus throughout their European campaign this season.
It’s almost as if the issues Juventus faced in Serie A while growing under Conte – lack of a killer instinct in the final third and lack of production from the strikers – have returned but only for European competitions. It’s incredibly frustrating seeing this side just demolish opposition in Italy, and then be unable to score a goal against a much lesser European opponent.
The fact that Conte is using squad rotation heavily in the Europa League also doesn’t help. It’s one thing to have these issues with a first choice squad, but when you have Federico Peluso and Mauricio Isla on the wings for you, you need the other nine members of the team at their best.
When discussing Juve’s ouster from the Champions League last season and when discussing their Champions League prospects this season, Conte was always quick to point out the financial advantage that clubs like Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, or PSG (among others) have over Juventus.
This is true and is a very valid point as to Juve’s performances against Bayern and Real lately, though they were far more closely matched with Real than they were with Bayern, but it’s worthless if we are trying to explain Juve’s weak mentality in Europe.
Maybe it’s much simpler than all this. Perhaps Juventus had not gelled yet when they started their Champions League campaign, so the poor results in the beginning doomed them from the start, regardless of what happened against Galatasaray or Copenhagen in the return legs.
This isn’t necessarily true as, going into the last game they were into the elimination round if they won. But in a certain sense it’s very valid – had they performed better in the beginning, they never have that issue at the end of the group stage.
Perhaps because they beat “average” sides in Italy with such ease, the players assume this transfers over to “average” European sides? For example against Real Madrid the team was excellent both times, in my opinion better than Real Madrid in both games. So is it a motivational issue? It obviously could not have been very hard for Conte to motivate his players against Real Madrid, but perhaps it is much harder to do so against Copenhagen or Trabzonspor.
None of these answers alone satisfies me. Probably we have a bit of all of these factors, and then a good amount of coincidence and the media making stories out of nothing. That said, it’s simply unacceptable for the reigning two time champions of Italy – and soon presumably three time champions – to play so weakly against a much smaller club.
Of course the rotation of players also factors in. Juventus do have great depth, but time and time again in Serie A and Coppa Italia we have seen the team struggle when too many players are benched at once.
I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with this year’s European campaign. Though a Europa League victory might change that. Until then the frustration of seeing Juventus play like a small minded club and the frustration of not knowing exactly why will reign over me.
Yeah most of the game was not very pretty to watch and we had a couple of late scares. That disallowed goal was definitely a close one.
Juve really need to stop taking their “shit” opponents for granted.