Allegri: Tomorrow the front-four will all play

Juventus will host Barcelona in the first leg tie tomorrow of the Champions League quarter finals, and manager Massimiliano Allegri confirmed that the Bianconeri will not be taking a defensive approach.

“I won’t say the formation, but tomorrow the front-four will all play. I don’t see why we should have to renounce them, it’s a Quarter-Final, a beautiful game, and they’ll have to be two beautiful games.

“It’s an important game, a nice one to play, and we’ll play it with the understanding and the belief that we can beat Barcelona and go through.

“It won’t be easy, because Barcelona are the strongest team, because they have those three players [Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar] up-front, along with the others, but above all with that front-three you’re likely to score goals in matches.

“On the other hand, we have good players of our own, we have a strong team which is doing great things. We’ve changed a lot in recent years, we’ve grown in self-confidence and awareness in the Champions League.

“It’s a Quarter-Final, Juventus should be used to playing games like this, the lads will be ready tomorrow because Juventus have important qualities and we need to show them on the pitch, while knowing the difficulties we’ll face against a great team.

“There are no favourites tomorrow because it’s a balanced game, we’ll need great balance. When you’re at home it’s always good to keep a clean sheet, but that will be difficult tomorrow so we have to play to score goals.

“We know that Barcelona have great attacking qualities but they also have weaknesses in terms of defence and we need to work on those, because we’ll try to exploit the opponents’ weaknesses.

“Whether the opponent is called - with all due respect - Chievo or Barcelona we always need to work on the weakness of the opponent. It’s the only way to go through, because you can’t play against Barcelona, get two 0-0s and go through on penalties, it’s basically impossible.”

Barca completed a remarkable turnaround in the previous round to eliminate Paris Saint-Germain -

“That match taught us that nothing can be taken for granted in football, especially at this level.

“So the thing we have to do is think about the game tomorrow and make sure we get it right, then we’ll think about the return.

“But again, it’s a major Quarter-Final, like the one with Bayern [Munich] and Real Madrid, these are four teams who are contenders for the Champions League, along with Atletico Madrid, the four will meet and two will remain.

“They will definitely be four evenings of great entertainment and we’ll have to play our game with great calmness and great technique, because when you play at this level it takes great technique, as well as being balance on the field in defence and attack.”