With the media focusing so intently on Italian football’s supposed decline, they may have lost sight of a rather extraordinary development. What Serie A lacks in star power, it makes up for with parity. Inter Milan may be pulling ahead in the Scudetto race, but with as many as six clubs vying for three Champions League places, Serie A is among the most competitive leagues on the planet right now.
And in the middle of that race are two of the oldest and most bitter rivals in the league, Roma and Juventus.
There’s no denying that the Vecchia Signora has held historical sway over Roma, but the Giallorossi have managed to stifle Juve over the past 18 months or so, grinding out three draws in their last four meetings.
This time around, it’s Juventus who are looking up at Roma in the standings. Thanks to a recent tailspin that has seen Juve drop points in four of their last six matches, the Giallorossi leapfrogged their northern rivals in the standings and now hold a four point lead over Luciano Spalletti’s club.
To get some insight into the Turin side of this rivarly, we turned once again to our friend Danny at Black, White & Read All Over, who was kind enough to lend us his time.
Juventus is struggling at the moment, losing four of its last six, so how would you assess its current form going into this trip to Roma, and do you sense any shift in confidence within the squad?
It’s hard to really pinpoint where this team’s head is at right now. I say that because you have this team fighting like hell while down a man against Inter and then Galatasaray, but then you have them laying a complete egg against Como and in the second half of the first leg in Istanbul. They’re just all over the place over the last month — and that’s played a big role in their lack of wins. Have those red cards been justified? Not the Pierre Kalulu one, nor the one to Lloyd Kelly a few days ago. But they’ve fought back despite all of that. They showed some damn fight — which is more than we could say about any point in the loss to Como last weekend.
The hope, of course, is that the performance against Galatasaray will show them they can play at that kind of level and take it to teams regardless of who the opponent is. I just wonder how much they have left in the tank after expending so much energy on Wednesday night.
Many of these defeats came in wild, high-scoring matches. So, should we attribute their current form to luck, or is there a pattern behind these losses?
The main pattern in these recent results is that Juve continues to be their own worst enemy. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the back or in the final third, they just can’t seem to get out of their own way much of the time over the past month. Look at the two legs against Galatasaray as a prime example of that. In the first leg, so much of what Galatasaray was able to do was because Juventus either gift-wrapped them a goal (or two) (or three) or had the stupidity to get a couple of yellow cards within about 10 minutes and get a man sent off. (Looking at you, Juan Cabal.) In the second leg, they could have pulled off a minor miracle and won the tie in regular time if not for a few big-time misses. That’s nothing new to anybody who has followed Juventus this season — even with the arrival of Spalletti, scoring goals has still been a problem for this team. So instead of celebrating the kind of comeback that few teams who have been down three goals after the first leg, they were left with a mixed feeling of pride for how they fought back but also regret for not getting over the hump when it was more than possible.
I mean, their xG in the second leg against Galatasaray was over 5. FIVE! You’d be a little pissed, too.
In recent matches, Juventus have prioritized controlled possession and structure — how do you expect them to set up tactically against Roma, especially against a team that presses aggressively and transitions quickly?
I think I would be more surprised if Lucio changes how he’s set things up much of the time as compared to sticking with how he’s had this team playing for much of his time as manager. Juve are definitely possessing the ball a lot more under Spalletti as compared to Igor Tudor, and as a result they’re also creating a lot more scoring chances, too. I don’t think the setup will be any different against Roma. But obviously a big factor in that will be how Spalletti thinks his team can handle his sort of usual game plan coming off of all that energy spent trying to flip things in their favor against Galatasaray. It’s not like Spalletti has done a ton of rotating his squad over the last few months — and that also has been a factor in this squad fading and just. a reflection of their very obvious lack of depth. So, who the heck knows — which is something I’ve been saying in regard to Juventus a lot lately.
Spalletti was hired to jolt Juventus’s style and restore consistency, but the results have been mixed. Do you think his tactical ideas are fully implemented now, or is the team still in a transitional phase?
I think they are pretty much implemented, but the thing that is holding the club back is the roster at his disposal. Honestly, that’s something that you can say about Juventus no matter who the manager has been for the last half-decade. At some point, you just have to look at the players and ask a simple question: “Are these guys good enough?” Some have shown that they are, others have clearly lacked in producing to the level that the club expected of them when they were signed. Every now and then I like to quote the great James Horncastle on our podcast, and what he said recently about Juventus rings so true right now: You have a bad window or two and it can set your club back a few years. Well, Juventus’ recent summer windows have been much more bad than good, and that is why they’re in this position right now and basically have become a club that pretty much just fights for Champions League qualification and not much else. There’s only so much Spalletti can do with that kind of roster.
It’s never too early to look ahead to the summer transfer window, so give us your best guess: will Jonathan David and Dusan Vlahovic return next year?
Right now, if I had to bet on one of them coming back, then it would probably be David. But even then, I’m not so sure considering the tough first season at Juventus that he’s had. That’s mainly due to the fact that they have invested a lot in David when it comes to his salary — he’s one of the highest paid players on the team behind Vlahovic — and they may be hoping that another year with Spalletti as well as a positive World Cup can be the thing that kicks things truly into gear on a more consistent basis. Vlahovic … who the hell knows. He clearly has other options since he will be on a free this summer, and it’s just a matter of how those develop. I know that he loves Juventus, but he’s also earning a Serie A-high €12 million net salary and who knows how much he will be willing to come down from that to remain in Turin beyond June. It feels like Juve’s more of a fallback option rather than the main option for him — and maybe that’s for the best at this point.
Lastly, give us a prediction for Sunday!
Like I said, I have no idea how much this squad has left in the tank after both the second leg against Gala and just the month of February. If they do, somehow, have something left and can muster up the same kind of gritty performance that they did four days earlier, I think they have a chance to win it. But, if they come out like they did last weekend, then I think they will lose. I’m leaning a little toward the second door of those two, which means I’ll say 2-1 to Roma. (Yeah, I said it. You can be happy now, Bren.)
