Following last Sunday’s last-second loss to Sassuolo, Juventus had 180 minutes to try and get back on track a little bit before the first international break of the season arrived. It involved two very different kinds of opponents — a struggling Dutch side and a domestic opponent that Juve had barely had any success against at the Allianz Stadium over the past decade.
Thursday night saw the first Europa League fixture passed with flying colors, the kind of one-sided scoreline on the scoreboard in Europe
that we haven’t seen from Juventus much at all in the past few decades.
And what about Sunday’s return to Serie A?
Well, it wasn’t a 5-0 win like against NEC Nijmegen, but it was a return to winning ways domestically.
Thanks to a second half in which Atalanta rarely looked all that dangerous, Juventus were able to put La Dea away with a towering Gleison Bremer header and claim a 2-0 victory at the Allianz Stadium. It marked Juventus’ first home victory over Atalanta since the pre-COVID days of 2018 — something that both speaks to how the Boys from Bergamo had previously risen to be a constant thorn in the Bianconeri’s side but also how the current state of the club is far from where it was seven or eight years ago.
We can say the same about Juventus, of course. See what we saw last weekend against Sassuolo is reminder of just how far off the 2018 version they currently are.
But on this day, with the opposing manager being the last man to lift the Scudetto in Turin, Juventus looked much, much better than the team they lined up against.
There was no stretched defense for much of the second half. There was no worrying when the hammer would fall because Juventus’ game state was just all over the damn place. As compared to seven days earlier, how Luciano Spalletti’s squad closed out the game was a breath of fresh and the hope is that it continues once this lengthy international break actually comes to a close during the second weekend of October. (Yes, it’s that long of a break.)
Things weren’t great for Juventus in the first half. That’s even after Francisco Conceição gave them the lead in the 28th minute. Juve recorded all of three shots total against the team that entered Sunday’s game allowing the most shots per game in Serie A so far this season. Things looked OK, but nothing to be overly excited about.
The second half, though, that was a change for the better. A much-needed change for the better to see out the win, too.
Was it the change at the half to bring on Pape Matar Sarr and have a little more steel and running in the midfield? Was it the fact that it looked like Maurizio Sarri didn’t change much of anything at the half? Or maybe it was just simply Juventus playing better than they did in the opening 45 minutes?
Either way, Juve really did control the second half in a way that we couldn’t say about the way things went to begin the game.
You combine this with the win over NEC midweek and it’s the kind of response you were hoping to see from Juventus following the loss to Sassuolo. That doesn’t mean that everything is all good now and there’s no reason to worry anymore. There’s still a host of injuries to important players, with many of them being long-term absences. There are much tougher opponents on the schedule before the second international break of the season arrives and those same players are back from injury.
But when you consider the immediate future, Spalletti and Juventus did well to get through the first steps of the difficult moment. They got two wins when they needed to and now go into the break with a little less heat on them as compared to where things stood seven days earlier.
Thankfully that’s the case because seeing Juventus lose a second straight Serie A fixture would have been brutal for a club that is already dealing with long-term injuries up and down the roster with no immediate respite in sight. Now we just hope that Juventus players don’t go out and then come back from international duty with the same kinds of injuries we’ve seen from previous international breaks.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- It sure was nice to hear Allianz Stadium singing in the way they were at the end of that game. Feels like it’s been a while since we’ve heard that strong of a voice from the supporters. (Not like they’ve had a ton to be happy about the last couple of years, but we know they are a driving force in a lot of ways.)
- Ah, yes … Mauruzio Sarri going with an Atalanta midfield three of players who have all been linked with moves to Juventus within the last couple of years. Instead, they all ended up in Bergamo.
- This Atalanta … not like the Atalanta of a couple of years ago, folks.
- Is that because they no longer have Teun Koopmeiners? (Don’t answer that. Let the joke sit.)
- In all seriousness, though, Koopmeiners was perfectly OK as Juve saw the win out. He did his job.
- More importantly, another signing by Cristiano Giuntoli — you know, the guy who is now in charge of building Atalanta’s roster — continues to look pretty good for Juventus. That would be Douglas Luiz. That decision by Spalletti to keep him around this summer is looking better and better by the week.
- And we’re getting Douglas Luiz sombreros in the closing minutes of a Juve win now? My goodness.
- Dad was at the stadium! Everybody look at how good Dad looks!
- That man is a couple of months away from being 52 years old and looks fantastic. It’s not just because of the beard that he continues to roll (incredibly well), either.
- How many different positions did Weston McKennie play in this game? Because I lost track. I seriously did.
- Sure like when Bremer plays like this as compared to whatever it was he was doing against Sassuolo. This Bremer is a lot better than that version. And the proof was in just how strong Juve were defensively on top of his scoring the goal that put Atalanta away.
- While Randal Kolo Muani didn’t score a goal on Sunday, this sure felt like the kind of game we could get used to seeing from him. Should he have scored? Yeah, maybe. But it was everything else that he did that was an encouraging sign that he may be starting to seriously get out of his struggles from the first couple of weeks of the season. My man was active — and a lot of the good things Juve did in attack went through him. More of this, Randal, because the goals will follow it this kind of performance becomes a regular thing.
- Seriously, some of the one-touch passing sequences that Kolo Muani was involved in were just lovely.
- Thankfully Juventus were up 2-0 in the final minutes because the visual of Nick Woltemade basically running toward three or four Atalanta defenders on the counter with nobody else in bianconero around him was amusing. It’s different if it’s a 0-0 game, of course.
- Woltemade is just German for giraffe. At least that’s what I think it means.
- Guglielmo Vicario had to make one save in this game. It was a good one.
- But that doesn’t mean Vicario was just a total spectator against Atalanta. He had plenty of his patrolling of his penalty area to do. And he did it well — which pretty much had me thinking about how Juve’s last starting goalkeeper probably wouldn’t have done it as well as Vic did. For that, I am thankful.
- Starting to really like what Pape Sarr brings to Juventus’ midfield. More of that after the international break.
- Zeki Celik good. And now we’re getting assists? Not bad for a guy who hasn’t played much on the left.
- You know who is also good? Jhon Lucumí. That man defended his ass off against Atalanta.
- I would like if the version of Pierre Kalulu from last season showed up again. He has not been that good in both phases of the game so far this season. His crossing has been off. Same can be said for his defending. And let’s just not discuss the risk he ran with the pulling of a player’s jersey in the box from the first half. A different day and a different referee and that could have been a PK at a point where Juve didn’t need it.
- This is a classic Conceição kind of game, right? As much as the goal is the highlight for him, there’s also so many questionable decisions that he made that leaves you just wanting more.
- Edon Zhegrova with an assist after his two-goal game against Sassuolo last weekend. Not bad.
- This Sunday was better than last Sunday. I feel like that is not a very controversial opinion.
- That’s also a pretty good way to go into an international break — especially one where the Italian papers are going to totally over-discuss certain talking points because of the extra week thrown in there despite how many games Gli Azzurri play.
- So yes, we crack open the bourbon for good times this weekend. Certainly not for the reasons of last weekend. For that, I am also very thankful.
