After having digested the match against Fiorentina, and viewing the large number of insightful comments that were made thereafter, a couple issues standout that warrants their highlight for the future. Plus photos from Saturday's game.
From the start of the match, our movement going forward ran into some difficulty with Viola’s numerical advantage in midfield. Mihajlovic’s men clogged our passing lanes and made it much harder for us to move the ball around then we were used to.
“The away side were doing a decent job in shutting Juve down in midfield – Alberto Aquilani was pressed and Fiorentina forced him to play simple balls from side to side, rather than ambitious forward passes.” ZonalMarking.net
Aquilani aside, that lack of enough creativity or world-class quality has been a problem for us ever since farsopoli. But that’s for another post. To make matters worse, when we were able to play balls forward in the first half to find Quagliarella and Milos Krasic, we left them without support and double-teamed.
The second issue that’s perhaps nothing more than just an athlete’s desire to play, but nonetheless deserves some mention. Fast forward to the sixtieth minute where Del Neri subbed off Del Piero. I couldn’t quite make out what he muttered underneath his breathe as he saw his number in lights on the sideline official’s board, but it couldn’t have been sweet.
Selfish little thirty-six year old eh? But I don’t blame him really, in the heat of the moment there’s no way he’d be able to think properly. He’s a champion by every stretch of the imagination, but it’s quite clear that given our game against Lech Poznan on Wednesday, Del Neri had no other choice but to make sure his only two healthy/eligible forwards weren’t drained ahead of it.
Lastly but certainly not least, it’s time Felipe Melo took Marco Motta’s hand and go have a heart-to-heart with Beppe and Del Neri. The kind of sit down that can turn their form around before matters get worse. You bring the marshmallows, I’ll bring the chocolate, and Del Piero can bring the graham crackers.
IERI... OGGI... DOMANI... SEMPRE JUVE!!!