No, it’s not yet time to press the panic button. Yes, Juventus did lose 2-1 to Benfica in the first leg. That’s not a good result, but there was a silver lining: Carlos Tevez scored an AWAY goal.
So, Juventus go through to the final with a 1-0 victory at Juventus Stadium, and Tevez finally broke his five year long European competition scoring drought. There have been worse evenings for us Juventini.
Benfica used their speed and lethal counter attacking to one-up Juventus today. Though they never really scored off of a counter they split apart Juve’s defense several times. Many critics of Antonio Conte’s favored 3-5-2 have cited the formation’s inability to defend against counters, and pacy attacking players. Today, they were partially proved right.
I say partially because there was more to Juve losing. The first goal, an Ezequiel Garay header, came off of a very early corner kick. On this setpiece, Leo Bonucci decided not to properly mark Garay, and Garay had a clear header. Perhaps a younger Gianluigi Buffon could have stopped the shot, but the fault belongs to Bonucci.
Later on, shortly after Tevez scored, Benfica brought the ball up to Juve’s final third. A weak backheel pass led to the ball rolling into the box, but Benfica’s movement had caught Giorgio Chiellini out of position, and the rest of Juve’s players were seemingly asleep. Lima pounced on the loose ball and finished it nicely, and Benfica got the win.
So, the goals were not a case of Benfica hitting Juve on the break, but they had a number of decent chances created from counters. That, and their high pressing, threw off Juve’s backline. Then the Tevez goal gave the Juve players a false sense of security, leading to the complacency on the second goal.
This has happened on numerous occasions this season – most notable in the 2-2 draw versus Galatasaray at Juventus Stadium. Fabio Quagliarella scored to put Juve up 2-1, and immediately after they let up a goal to Galatasaray. When you couple this with “collapses” versus Verona and Fiorentina – 2-2 and 1-1 draws respectively – and I think you can see the pattern of complacency when Juve are in control.
It happens in Serie A too, but Juve’s attackers have the quality to put away games affirmatively in the league. This is not the case in Champions League or Europa League where they have been playing opponents of higher quality. Without the extra padding from those goals, Juventus are left exposed in Europe.
Juventus also had a fair number of chances that should have been put away, another pattern we have seen throughout Conte’s tenure. However, I think this is not nearly as influential on Juve’s results when compared to the “complacency goals.” For about eleven minutes, Juventus were “winning” the tie. But then came that second Benfica goal.
It didn’t help that, with the game clearly in the bag, Conte substituted Carlos Tevez for Dani Osvaldo. Tevez had a phenomenal game even not counting his goal, he was all over Benfica’s half especially in the last 45 minutes. Had he stayed on, Juve could have perhaps scored another goal. Instead, Osvaldo did nothing.
I’m not blaming Conte for that sub, he should be able to bring on Osvaldo without having to worry about scoring one more goal to keep the team in the game. He shouldn’t have to worry about Benfica scoring from a loose ball that should have been cleared.
The tie isn’t over. Like I said at the start of this column, a 1-0 win at home sees Juve through to the final. Benfica deserve credit for putting on a great fight, but Juventus were disappointing in that match. If they repeat this performance we will be congratulating Benfica on their advancement to the Europa League final. Conte has a week to make sure this isn’t the case.
