Personally, I am always a fan of Jose Mourinho coming to Turin looking to cause trouble and then, subsequently, leaving the Juventus Stadium with of those classic pouty faces that he is very much known
for.
After 95 minutes on Wednesday night, Mourinho had that kind of facial expression as he walked back down the tunnel.
With Juventus’ strong second-half performance that included goals from Khephren Thuram and Weston McKennie within 10 minutes of each other, the Bianconeri were able to right the wrongs of a tough opening 45 minutes and claim an incredibly valuable 2-0 win over Mourinho’s Benfica. It’s a win that mathematically secured Juventus a spot in the play-off round, with the small hopes of pushing for a spot in the top eight still there as they head into next week’s Champions League league phase finale against Monaco in the Principality.
Could they really?
I mean, there’s a lot that will have to go their way next Wednesday night, but there’s still a chance of it. That’s because there’s only one point separating Juventus in 15th place and Chelsea in eighth. Although, the obvious hurdle is the simple fact of there being six teams — including Atalanta and Inter Milan — in between where Juventus currently sit thanks to their win over Benfica.
So you’re saying there’s a chance? I dunno! Maybe!
But if Benfica can miss a penalty that poorly and do it in hilarious kind of fashion, then maybe we can think that good things can continue to happen as long as Juventus take care of business in Monaco.
Either way, I feel like it’s pretty safe to say that Juventus manager Luciano Spalletti was able to right some of the wrongs as his team came out for the second half. The first one being bringing Francisco Conceição on right out of the break, giving Juve a much more consistent threat down the right wing. That allowed McKennie to shift to a role where he was able to play off Jonathan David much more than when he was out wide to star the game. And what do you know? Both of Juve’s goal resulted in some nice interplay between David and both Thuram and McKennie, giving Juventus a lead just as it looked like Benfica might be starting to kick into gear.
Just like that, though, two goals in less than 10 minutes changed all that.
Considering Benfica’s European situation entering Wednesday night’s game — they needed to win to have any shot of controlling their own destiny in their UCL league phase finale next week against Real Madrid — it was always going to be a tight kind of matchup. We knew Juve were coming off a performance over the weekend in which they were frustrated both with the result and the overall showing in Sardinia. They had to be better as the Champions League came back in the fold knowing full well that a win would put them in a nice position in the table entering the final day of the league phase.
Through a good — not great — showing against Benfica, Juventus got the job done. They started out a huge three-game stretch domestically and in Europe with three vital points. That is something we weren’t saying before Spalletti arrived. And now? Well, it’s going better than how it was when the Champions League campaign first got underway. (Yes, even with the loss to Cagliari over the weekend.)
Now they just need to keep it going rather than another slip-up like we saw a few days earlier.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- That Vangelis Pavlidis penalty. What is there to say about it?
- Oh, right! I think I know: HOLY SMOKES, BATMAN.
- If you can, go ahead and find a replay with the angle from behind Pavlidis and check out the face of Michele Di Gregorio as all of that happens. The man looked as stunned as all of us were.
- You can feel sympathetic toward Pavlidis all you want, but I sure did have a nice little laugh as a result of that penalty miss. That was a doozy.
- Can I say something in all-caps again real quick? I’ll take that as a yes. Here we go: RENEW WESTON McKENNIE’S CONTRACT AND DO IT NOW. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME ON THIS IMPORTANT MATTER.
- The camera on Spalletti on the sidelines worked overtime in this one. More of that, please.
- Oh that’s right! Enzo Barrenechea plays for Benfica now! Thanks for the reminder, everybody.
- Jonathan David touches through the first 18 minutes: 3.
- Di Gregorio touches through the first 18 minutes: 3.
- Lloyd Kelly making important last-man blocks that prevents an opponent from scoring in the Champions League is not something that I would guess I’d be typing with how he was playing when he first joined Juventus a year ago. But here we are, and I am certainly thankful Lloyd’s form has gotten much better.
- Oh and how important did that block after a great save from Di Gregorio prove to be? Well, just look how the game played out. Instead of chasing the result for much of the night, Kelly’s block prevented Benfica from scoring — and then the rest of the second half was there for the taking. And Juve did just that.
- That was one hell of a defensive shift from Manuel Locatelli. I mean, my word. Dude was everywhere.
- Locatelli blocked five shots! On his own! He had 13 defensive actions, according to Sofascore. That’s a whole hell of a lot. He just worked his ass off against Benfica.
- Locatelli also had 69 touches. Chef’s kiss.
- That man got a really nice ovation as he was subbed off in the second half and deserved every bit of it.
- I love them and I don’t care what anybody else has to say about it!!!
- Remember how we were talking about Thuram’s shooting needs to be better? Well, I think it’s safe to say that KT is either a secret BWRAO reader or he just so happens to have really good timing. Either that or nothing else. These are the rules. Sorry, I can’t say anything more about it. Or maybe hello to the new account that is labeled “KhephrenRulesMarcusDrools00017” or something along those lines.
- Thuram doesn’t score that goal if not for the work that David did to shield his man from the ball just long enough for KT to get there with his run and do the rest. It’s that kind of stuff that David has been improving on over the last few weeks, and it’s his combination play with his teammates that are creating more scoring chances on the whole.
- Gleison, you know I love you, but please no more penalties no matter what the score is at the time. Got it? Good, good, good. Now just keep doing good things more often than bad things like you usually do.
- We started the month with Federico Chiesa being linked to Juventus as a potential vice-Yildiz and now we’re three weeks into January and Filip Kostic might be the vice-Yildiz option off the bench. Good times.
- Not Fabio Miretti’s best game. Nope, not even close.
- Andreas Schjelderup is just a fun name to say. You know it’s true.
- I gotta say, some of these turnovers that Juventus had both before and after taking the lead really could have cost them. They are truly lucky that Benfica weren’t more dangerous on those types of chances.
- Like, what are we doing with a handful of those turnovers? They were so bad.
- I likened it to my beloved Golden State Warriors and what a lot of us like to describe as their turnover fetish. It doesn’t matter how good somebody like Steph Curry is, the team just can’t help themselves when it comes to turnovers and doing some really dumb things sometimes. I feel like Juventus, especially this version, are suffering from that same kind of thing.
- Does that make Kenan Yildiz the Steph Curry of Juventus? That sure would be nice!
- Pierre Kalulu continues to play every single minute of every single game and he’s still so consistently good.
- But seriously, renew McKennie’s contract. Dude continues to score goals in the Champions League and it would be really said if he’s doing that same kind of thing somewhere other than Turin come next season.
- There might be bourbon consumed a little later. And it won’t be for the same reason as it was over the weekend. I, maybe selfishly, like this reason a whole lot better than that reason.
- Now we focus on Napoli. How did they do in the Champions League this week? (Sorry, couldn’t resist. It was right there for the taking … and I took it. You would have done the same.)
