Allegri: In football you can never take things for granted

Juventus host Porto tomorrow in the second leg of their Round of 16 Champions League game, with the hosts 2-0 up on aggregate. Despite the scoreline, Juve manager Massimiliano Allegri called for caution during his pre-match press conference after training today.

“There are a lot of risks, because first and foremost it’s a game of football and a game of football can never be discounted.

“Moreover, Porto will believe they can play a great game tomorrow, they showed that in the play-off with Roma there they were starting from a disadvantage.

“They’re a team who know how to play these kind of games, and they know very well how to take advantage of their chances.

“So tomorrow we need to reduce it to one game, without thinking about the 2-0, but by thinking and doing the things which will bring us to another home win.

“Do we need a statement performance? Fireworks are used in the final, fireworks don’t matter tomorrow, all that matters is we go through.”

Allegri also indicated that Claudio Marchisio will play tomorrow.

“Everyone is fine apart from Stefano Sturaro who will be back with the squad in the coming days, I think he’ll be available for the match in Genoa [with Sampdoria].

“We have these two games and then we have to try and manage our strength better, because we expended a lot on Friday [against Milan]. We’re coming from an intense period and we can’t afford to let our energy levels drop.

“Every is fine so tomorrow… ok, fine, I’ll tell you the starters. Tomorrow Marchisio will play. In terms of the centre-backs I’ll need to see, because Giorgio Chiellini is back with the team, but I need to assess whether he can play tomorrow.

“So I have two questions, one at right-back and one in the middle.”

Star forward Paulo Dybala also spoke today, talking about how the controversial win over AC Milan on Friday had served to inspire the Bianconeri.

“The team is playing very well. We’re coming off a win which had to suffer a bit for, but which we deserved. We know Porto, we saw what they did against Roma. It won’t be easy at 11 v 11.

“The game against Milan definitely gives us strength, but I think with how the game ended we deserved the win beforehand because we played a great game with a lot of chances to close it out earlier, but we had to wait until the last minute.

“But given how we won and the way we celebrated it, we’ll have the motivation to come into this game with more faith.”