Juventus-flavored Champions League cocktail: Vidal’s grinta plus Allegri’s brains

Date: 14th April 2015 at 11:39pm
Written by:

The Bianconeri obtained a deserved 1-0 win at the Juventus Stadium on Tuesday night, giving themselves a sufficient platform to progress past Monaco in the coming second leg.

Juventus v Monaco

Viewers got the match they expected — or at least should have expected — from the Champions League quarter final’s two more pragmatic coaches.

Juventus’ Massimiliano Allegri and Monaco’s Leonardo Jardim contested a tight 1-0 game, which was something of a high-speed chess match.

The tactical battle was present, but so were the goal-scoring opportunities, the tension, the excitement, and the suspense.

Juventus versus Monaco was a bit of a case of the irresistible force and immovable object paradox. The irresistible force in question was Juventus’ Arturo Vidal whilst the immovable object was Monaco’s Danijel Subasic.

Danijel Subasic Monaco

In fact the Monaco goalkeeper has kept 16 Ligue 1 clean sheets (0.70 goals conceded) — including five in the Champions League (0.50 goals conceded) — and given Vidal’s start to the match, might not have expected conceding to the Chilean.

Vidal had a poor start to the game… in truth, he has had a very poor season by his own high standards.

Indeed Juventus fans would have been forgiven to feeling anxious at the sight of Vidal picking up the ball to take the penalty, after his surprising miss seconds from the first half whistle.

The Juventus midfielder had already missed two penalties this season already, and especially with set-piece specialist Andrea Pirlo and in-form Carlos Tevez on the pitch, it was a brave choice from Allegri to keep faith in his designated penalty taker.

Vidal finished with aplomb however, confidently converting to give Juventus the all-important 1-0 lead against Monaco. The single goal lead — with it not even being an away goal — may not seem like such an unassailable lead but statistics would suggest otherwise.

Arturo Vidal Juventus

After all, 59 of the 80 teams (74%) who scored the first goal in a Champions League quarter final went on to progress to the next round. (via UEFA.com)

Moreover, Monaco are not a team which is comfortable at taking the game to their opponents. On Tuesday evening, paradoxically, Monaco were much better in the opening 20 minutes when they had less offensive players.

In the first half, Monaco looked dangerous and comfortable playing with Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco, Nabil Dirar and Anthony Martial up front. However, after the Juventus goal, the introductions of Bernardo Silva for the injured Dirar and Dimitar Berbatov for Andrea Raggi seemed to stunt Monaco who then had to chase the game.

Allegri recognised this of course, subbing in Andrea Barzagli for Pirlo to switch to a three-man defence and take a more passive stance against Monaco.

Allegri would have been confident in that game plan, with Juventus never having lost at home in the Champions League since Bayern Munich beat them 2-0 in 2013, and Gianluigi Buffon not having conceded in Europe in 394 minutes.

Gianluigi Buffon Juventus

So in the end, Allegri came and got what he was looking for: a result and a clean sheet.

“Tomorrow we must play with a lot of patience,” Allegri had said in his pre-match press conference.

“We must be careful in this leg, because then we might not have an opportunity to make up for it in the reverse leg if we play silly.”

Juventus may have looked a bit silly in the opening 20 minutes against Monaco, but overall controlled the game, showed their superiority, never really had to stretch themselves, and got the expected win ahead of the second leg.

Massimiliano Allegri Juventus

 

Comments are closed.