February was such a dramatic fall from grace for Juventus — and, as a result, we have so much to discuss — that I’m going to skip my usual intro and get straight to business.
Andiamo.
Badly Burnt
The only ray of sunshine in this miserable February came from the 4-1 victory over Parma on the first day of the month. Gleison Bremer scored a thumping header from a Francisco Conceição corner to open the scoring after 15 minutes. Our superstar midfielder Weston McKennie continued his fantastic season with an acrobatic
volley from a pinpoint cross from Pierre Kalulu. The much-maligned Andrea Cambiaso then scored a bizarre own goal when he tried to backheel a cross away from goal … but then saw his lazy (but brilliant?) attempt fly past Michele Di Gregorio in goal.
The third goal came from another set piece. The cross found McKennie, who hit the crossbar with his shot, and Bremer then tapped in David’s header that seemed like it was crossing the line anyway before the Brazilian (selfishly?) made sure of it. David finally got his goal when he scored from a rebound after goalkeeper Edoardo Corvi saved Conceição’s shot: 4-1.
It was all downhill after that.
Next, Atalanta beat Juventus 3-0 in the Coppa Italia quarter finals. Both teams had a few decent chances at the start of the game but Atalanta scored the first goal thanks to some refereeing controversy (much more to come of that later!). Éderson played a harmless cross to the box but it grazed off Bremer’s hand. Nobody thought anything of the situation but in another nonsensical use of technology in football, a VAR review resulted in a penalty for Atalanta; Gianluca Scamacca scored from the spot. Despite their lead, Atalanta ceded most of the game to Juventus, who were wasteful in front of goal.
Atalanta, on the other hand, were ruthless. From the four shots on target, they scored three times as Kamaldeen Sulemana and Mario Pasalic scored in the final ten minutes of the game to give them a flattering 3-0 victory.
The next match, at home against Lazio, was borderline farcical.
The Bianconeri took not one, not two, but a barely-believable THIRTY-TWO shots against Lazio, which equates to more than a shot every three minutes. And yet, Lazio scored two goals after 47 minutes of play. Daniel Maldini stole the ball from Manuel Locatelli after he took forever to play a pass and played the ball to the utterly obnoxious Pedro in the box. The Spanish winger took a shot that deflected off Bremer and went past Di Gregorio at the near post. The second goal came quickly after halftime. Daniel Cataldi played a stunning ball over the top to Gustav Isaksen who started his run from the halfway line, ran past the helpless Cambiaso, and blasted his shot past Di Gregorio (who showed some poor goalkeeping/reflexes when he failed to save a shot that seemingly went straight at him).
McKennie scored yet again to bring us back into the game. This time it was a header from a Cambiaso cross. We huffed and puffed and looked to be heading to another loss when Kalulu headed in from new signing Jérémie Boga’s cross deep into second-half stoppage time to rescue a draw for Spalletti’s team. A wasteful, frustrating 2-2 draw.
Then came the big one: the Derby D’ Italia away at league-leading Inter. Cambiaso continued his eventful month of own goals, assists, and goals when he first scored an unfortunate own goal when Luis Henrique’s cross deflected off his toe and Di Gregorio couldn’t sort out his feet quickly enough to prevent the ball from bouncing past him into goal. He redeemed himself a few minutes later when some nice combination play on the right between David, Kalulu, and McKennie resulted in the latter crossing to Cambiaso, who snuck in front of Henrique to score with a tidy volley.
Everything changed in the 42nd minute of the game. First, the always-dramatic Alessandro Bastoni made a disgraceful dive after feeling a puff of wind the slightest bit of contact on his shoulder from Pierre Kalulu, who was on a yellow card. Bastoni then made the obnoxious little handwave gesture to the referee, asking for Kalulu to receive his second yellow card and thus a red. Referee Federico La Penna fell for this unprofessional behavior and gave Kalulu his second yellow card. Not satisfied with his disgraceful behavior, Bastoni then celebrated the referee’s decision right in front of Kalulu and other Juve players.
Remarkably though, the Bianconeri played better than Inter for large parts of the second half, despite falling behind again due to a great header from Pio Esposito in the 76th minute. Locatelli then equalized thanks to a right-footed shot just inside the box thanks to another assist from McKennie (surely he is our best midfielder at this point?). Unfortunately, the fatigue from playing 45 minutes with 10 men resulted in Juventus conceding the last goal of the game in the last minute. Piotr Zielinski fired a shot from the edge of the box that flew past a sea of legs and Di Gregorio, who couldn’t see the ball until it was too late: 3-2.
The misery continued in the next game, a whopping 5-2 loss away at Galatasaray in the playoff round of the Champions League. Victor Osihmen took advantage of a poor touch from Kenan Yildiz to win possession for his team, which eventually led to Gabriel Sara scoring the opening goal with a lovely shot. Spalletti’s team equalized 85 seconds later through flipped the game around when Koopmeiners scored from the rebound after goalkeeper Uğurcan Çakir saved Kalulu’s header. Koopmeiners got his second in the 35th minute when he played a lovely 1-2 with makeshift center forward McKennie and slammed a rocket of a shot past the goalkeeper.
But then, there was the second-half meltdown. Dutch winger Noa Lang equalized when he tapped in a rebound after Di Gregorio saved Baris Yilmaz’s cross. Colombian defender Davinson Sánchez nodded in a vicious cross from Sara’s free kick to restore Gala’s lead on the hour mark. Thuram then played a horrific pass in his own box to Lloyd Kelly, who could do nothing to prevent Osihmen intercepting the ball and Lang scoring his second of the goal, thus making this the first Champions League game in which two Dutch players scored a brace in the same game. Bayern Munchen loanee Sacha Boey completed the humiliation when Osihmen completed his fantastic performance by outmuscling Kelly and assisting Boey, who fired a laser of a shot past Di Gregorio: 5-2.
From one depressing result to the next: a 2-0 home loss to Como was next on the calendar. Como barely broke a sweat in this game but scored two goals with… two shots on target. Mergim Vojvoda took a weak shot that took a slight deflection but seemed like an easy save for Di Gregorio. Somehow, he completely fumbled the save, which resulted in Como’s first goal. Both teams did very little for the remainder of the game; Como because they didn’t have to and Juventus because they were unable to. Maxence Caqueret scored the second goal on a lightning counter attack after a Juventus corner kick.
We ended the month in bittersweet fashion with a near-miracle comeback against Galatasaray. Thuram won a penalty just before half-time that Locatelli scored to start the comeback. But in a month full of refereeing controversies, we suffered yet another nonsensical red card when the referee gave Kelly a red card for following the laws of gravity jumping and landing on Yilmaz’s leg. Despite that injustice, we continued to dominate the match.
Gatti scored the second goal after tapping in a wicked cross from Kalulu and the stadium erupted when Zhegrova whipped in a vicious free kick that eventually found its way to Juventus’ best striker McKennie, who headed in at the far post. Zhegrova had the chance to become the hero in the 96th minute after receiving a pass from McKennie in the box, but somehow sidefooted the ball wide from a few yards out with the goal at his mercy. To extra-time we go!
The Bianconeri eventually ran out of steam as a result of playing over 2 hours of football with 10 men in less than 2 weeks. Osihmen and Yilmaz scored in extra time with shots that went through Mattia Perin’s legs and cruelly ended our hopes of a miraculous comeback. But at the end of the day, we have but only ourselves (and, on two occasions, the referee) to blame for our failures last month.
Juventus Women
Juventus Women blew Sassuolo away 4-0 on the first day of the month. Pauline Krumbiegel fired a shot that the goalkeeper saved but Chiara Beccari scored from the rebound. Cristiana Girelli then scored her 150th goal for Juventus (before announcing her departure to Bay FC) when she tapped in a low cross from Krumbiegel. Beccari scored her second when she headed in a great cross from Tatiana Pinto and she completed her hat trick with a lovely lob after latching onto Girelli’s pass.
Unlike the men, the women did defeat a club by the name of Como, although one that has different owners. Estela Carbonell scored with a deflected shot in the first half and Krumbiegel continued her great month with a goal late in the second half to secure a 2-0 victory for the team.
In the next game, the Bianconere traveled to Germany to play Wolfsburg in the Champions League. We took the lead when debutant Ana Capeta headed in from Carbonell’s corner and doubled our lead when Capeta continued her amazing debut with an assist for Amalie Vangsgaard who scored after an hour of play. Wolfsburg started the comeback when they won a penalty after a handball in the box by Viola Calligaris; Janina Minge scored from the spot. Sarai Linder scored a dramatic equalizer in the 96th minute of the game with an incredible shot from outside the box: a disappointing 2-2 draw despite the 2-0 lead for Juventus. In the next game, we played out a goalless draw in the league against Lazio.
Despite dominating the second leg, we fell to a 2-0 loss at home to Wolfsburg in the second leg of playoff round. Vivian Endemann scored on a lightning counterattack in the 18th minute and Cora Zicai scored with the last kick of the game in the 96th minute, again on a counter.
For the second time in less than two weeks, Juventus threw away a two-goal lead. After first-half goals from Abi Brighton and Capeta gave us a comfortable lead away at Ternana, the hosts rescued a point from the game thanks to goals from Valeria Pirone (penalty) and Giafa Cimó: 2-2.
Crumbling
Besides the refereeing madness in two of the most pivotal games of the season — red cards for Kelly and Kalulu — I can summarize the misery of this month in two data points: in both January and February we played seven games. In January, we conceded two goals; in February, we conceded 18 goals. Granted, there was a dramatic difference in the level of opposition in either month. In January, we faced the likes of Lecce, Sassuolo, and Cremonese while in February we played teams like Atalanta, Inter, Lazio, and Como.
Regardless, the degree to which the Juventus defense crumbled last month is alarming. Again, I add a big asterisk to the fact that the referee ruined two games for us, but that still does not explain the explosion of goals we conceded. Teams are constantly scoring with their first shot (on target) against us either due to bad luck (own goals/deflections) or poor goalkeeping from Di Gregorio.
It adds more credibility to the argument that Juventus isn’t sure what type of team it wants to be. Does it want to be an all-guns-blazing team that scores a lot and concedes plenty? That’s difficult when we’re here in March and your four strikers have 15 goals combined in all competitions. Does Juventus want to be a corto muso style team which is closest to its true nature and brought the club the greatest level of success in its (recent) history? It’s hard to do that when your defense capitulates against teams that it is supposed to be on the same level with.
Despite the team’s antics and their somewhat unlikeable coach, I’ve always thought that Atletico Madrid was a good middle ground. They have the second-best defense (one goal more conceded than the league’s best defense, very surprisingly Real Madrid) and the fourth-best attack in Spain.
Do we have the quality to be a team like that? Perhaps. This is the same team that pushed Inter to the limit while playing with 10 men for 45 minutes and beat defending champions Napoli 3-0 at home. But to me the biggest problem is the inconsistency in deciding what type of team we want to be. In the last 2-3 years, we’ve gone from corto muso to more progressive football to a current state of limbo because we keep switching coaches, presidents, and sporting directors.
Whatever the case, we’re currently a painfully mediocre team who can barely achieve fourth place and scarcely worthy of Champions League football.
Politics
During all the time that I’ve followed football, many things have changed. One thing that has remained constant is the governing bodies’ insistence that players and fans keep politics out of football.
It is, therefore, remarkable that these same governing bodies are showing incredible hypocrisy on this position. First, FIFA President Gianni Infantino made a nonsensical FIFA Peace Prize for his new best friend, U.S. President Donald Trump. Perhaps this is unsurprising given his increasingly frequent visits to the White House and meetings with President Trump. Then, FIFA officially launched a partnership with the recently-created, highly-controversial Board of Peace (created by Trump) to redevelop Gaza using football and football stadiums.
The hypocrisy of telling fans to keep politics out of football when the governing bodies are going out of their way to get involved in (highly controversial) political issues is so hypocritical and insulting that I felt the need to highlight it in this month’s review.
It also means that I no longer feel the need to tiptoe around politics when discussing sport.
