No matter who they play against, it's always interesting to see how Juventus come out of the halftime interval for the simple fact of Antonio Conte just had 15 or so minutes to hammer instructions into his team. It really doesn't matter what the situation is, Juve have proved that the second half is their half time after time. Conte is a master at making adjustments at the break, and the players are the one who reap the rewards.
Case in point: Sunday night in Rome.
Conte's men took a 1-0 game and turned it into a complete rout within five minutes. No, seriously. It happened. Watch the video and prepare to have your mind blown. Goals from Giorgio Chiellini, Stephan Licthsteiner and Carlos Tevez ended any kind of Lazio comeback in a matter of moments and provided everybody a reason to remember just who we're dealing with here.
If you guessed "Conte's Juventus," then you're correct, folks.
And what were we saying about Juventus having a bad preseason? I can't seem to remember considering all I see is Juve scoring a ton of goals in the Supercoppa. I hope you guys understand.
FIRST GOAL
You want to see how to do the perfect counterattack, watch that one over and over and over and over again. In a matter of seconds Juventus are clearing a ball out of their own box to watching Chiellini score a goal at the other end of the field.
The most impressive thing: It took four passes — Chiellini to Pirlo, Pirlo to Vidal, Vidal to Lichtsteiner, Lichtsteiner to Chiellini — for Juventus to go rom their own 18-yard box to celebrating a goal by KIng Kong himself. That's just completely unreal yet completely awesome at the same time.
SECOND GOAL
Much like the first goal of the half, a ball to the outside — although this time from Paul Pogba and with a little less on the style points scale — just springs everything into motion. Then the run from Lichtsteiner to perfectly run onto Mirko Vucinic's sneaky little back heel and you have the makings of an onslaught in the process.
I also find it quite interesting how Lazio's midfielders were basically standing around and watching the ball until after Lichsteiner had already started making his run towards the attacking third of the field. Maybe they were shocked after going two goals down in sudden fashion, maybe they were just doing it by design (which doesn't make much sense at all). Either way, that's not exactly showing much desire to try and cut off one of Juventus' forays towards the Lazio goal.
THIRD GOAL
The perfect exclamation point to what was a completely dominant five-minute spell. I just love how Conte is walking down the sideline with a purpose and shouting out directions to his players even though the score is 3-0. Almost like in his mind Juve were even with Lazio and needed a goal to win it when it couldn't be further from what the reality was.
You don't think the goal meant something to these players? Watch how they celebrate with Tevez. I'd say the guy is fitting in just fine with his new teammates. And if this is what the Juve attack even closely resembles what it will be like a few months from now, good times await us all. Well, other than the rest of Serie A and a select number of European clubs in the Champions League.