Games between old hands like Luciano Spalletti and Massimiliano Allegri will always be highly tactical affairs.
Of course, those tactics tend to be diametrically opposed. Between Spalletti’s attacking innovation and Allegri’s defend-at-all-costs approach, it’s always interesting to see how the two would work to get the advantage over each other.
It’s been hard for Juventus and AC Milan to gain an advantage over each other the last few years. Three of the last four games against each other had ended
in goalless draws, including their first game this year at the Allianz. The return at this critical juncture of the season was heavy with meaning. Milan’s recent breakdown in form had allowed Juve to pull up three points behind them. A victory would’ve seen them pull past them into third on the head-to-head tiebreaker and keep the distance between Roma and Como at five.
But that tendency to cancel each other came back out again. Both sides had their chances — Juve hit the target with five of their 10 shots and had a goal called back, Milan saw Alexis Saelemaekers slam a ball off the crossbar—but in the end, neither team had the push to get the ball over the other’s goal line. With the results earlier in the weekend, Juve finished three points above the chasing pack and still in control of their own destiny in the race for the top four with four games to go.
Spalletti got Dusan Vlahovic back to the bench after yet another injury stop, but Kenan Yildiz was still only fit for sub appearances, and Arkadiusz Milik and Juan Cabal were out. Spalletti named a strong 3-4-2-1 lineup, with Michele Di Gregorio at its base. Pierre Kalulu, Bremer, and Lloyd Kelly made up the back three, while Weston McKennie and Andrea Cambiaso started as wing-backs. Former Milan prospect Manuel Locatelli joined Khéphren Thuram in midfield, while Francisco Conceição and Jérémie Boga supported Jonathan David in attack.
Allegri wasn’t missing many to injuries, although Davide Bartesaghi started despite not being 100 percent. The 3-5-2 that has become his staple remained, however ill-fitting some of his players were for it. Mike Maignan started in goal behind the defensive trio of Matteo Gabbia, Strahinja Pavlovic, and Fikayo Tomori. Bartesaghi joined Saelemaekers out on the wings, while Adrien Rabiot, Luka Modric, and Youssouf Fofana ran the midfield. Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leão started together as an unconventional strike pair.
As expected, the game started cagey. Juve, usually a team that presses hard up top, allowed Milan to hold the ball in their own half, with Maignan getting time to survey the entire field when his team tried to recycle the ball. Modric found himself getting man-marked by Thuram, the old Croatian war horse having been identified as the biggest threat on the field.
It wasn’t until the 10th minute that either side took a shot, an effort from range by Thuram that was blocked in close. In the 16th minute the Frenchman was teed up beautifully by Boga, but couldn’t get to the ball in time to get a shot off. Locatelli clearly had come out with a point to prove against the club that gave up on him, slamming into his former teammate Rabiot in midfield and sending him sprawling.
Milan took their first attempt in the 21st minute, but Fofana got selfish and fired well off target after Cambiaso, who had been booked, proved ineffective in defending the pass that game his way. With 10 minutes left in the half Rabiot took a shot from the top of the box that fortunately went right at Di Gregorio, who parried it back out into the box to find Leão blazing way over.
Seconds after that Juve thought they had taken the lead after Conceição made a lovely move in the box and found Thuram with a low cross—but the midfielder was well offside, and the goal was quite rightly disallowed. The Portuguese continued to present danger, taking down a beautiful long pass from Locatelli and shaking Bartesaghi before firing at a tight angle right into Maignan’s chest. He shook the young Italian winger again in first-half stoppage time, but again hit it too centrally for it to be of much trouble for Maingan.
Less than five minutes into the second period Saelamaekers blasted into the crossbar after a beautiful, flowing pass move, while David couldn’t quite work his way through the middle on a breakaway a few minutes later. Bremer tried his luck from outside the box, but again hit the ball far too centrally and saw another simple hate by Maignan.
Milan had a bit more control of things in the middle of the half, but didn’t look like they had any idea how to penetrate the Juve defense. Locatelli, on the other hand, was able to break Conceição through the lines, but Pavlovic was able to stop him in the nick of time before a shot. Teun Koopmeiners had a long-range shot slightly deflected to make it a little easier for Maignan, then put a free kick in that was punched out.
There was a scary moment with 15 minutes to go when Locatelli and Modric both went up for the ball and violently clashed heads, with the Croatian clearly getting the worst of it. Locatelli eventually went to check on his stricken opponent, who was replaced by Ardon Jashari with a massive swelling on his face.
Spalletti wasn’t satisfied with the draw, and sent Yildiz and Edon Zhegrova into the fray for the final 15 minutes. The latter saw a cross fly just over the head of David as Juve kept their hosts pinned in their own half for the final phases. The Canadian did get to a cross from Emil Holm moments later, but couldn’t make clean contact and instead flashed it across the face of goal.
Vlahovic was a welcome sight coming off the bench in the last few minutes. Locatelli made a long pass toward the byline that Yildiz simply whiffed at, while Vlahovic went a little early before he forced Maignan into a kick save. Milan was clearly content with not losing, while Juve pushed until the end to actually win the match, but simply couldn’t find the opening in Milan’s armor to make the final thrust. The final seconds ticked by, and when the last whistle blew, it brought the curtain down on 180 minutes of goalless football between the two sides.
