After the debacle that was Juventus’ 2-0 loss to Como on Sunday, morale amongst Juventini was at an all-time low. There was tons of chatter about Igor Tudor’s job security, and it was widely assumed that he had a finite amount of games to maintain it.
So of course it was the perfect time to head to the Bernabeu to play Real Madrid.
But with expectations at an all-time low, Juve played Madrid tough the entire night. Juve’s counterattack caused Los blancos some major issues, and were it not for Thibaut
Courtois making a few truly special saves, Juve may have been able to nose their way level—or maybe even into the lead.
Ultimately that wasn’t to be. Football again proved to be a matter of inches when Jude Bellingham tapped in the rebound when Vinícius Júnior banged an angled drive off the base of the post. Courtois made a string of excellent saves to keep his team in front, while Michele Di Gregorio did likewise, replicating his performance from the Club World Cup. Juve weren’t able to get that goal they so desperately needed to turn the game on its head, dooming them to a 1-0 loss and pushing their winless streak up to seven in a row in all competitions. But given what was expected of this game? Given their current form, it was far more than most of us expected. The only issue is whether or not the team can transfer that mentality to Sunday’s league fixture against Lazio.
Tudor’s experiment with a four-man back line only lasted a single game, and he returned to his usual 3-4-2-1. Fabio Miretti and Edon Zhegrova were on the bench but unlikely to play, while Bremer and Juan Cabal remained sidelined with injuries. Michele Di Gregorio started in goal, screened by the trio of Federico Gatti, Daniele Rugani, and Lloyd Kelly. Pierre Kalulu and Andrea Cambiaso played on the wings, surrounding the double pivot of Teun Koopmeiners and Khéphren Thuram. Kenan Yildiz and Weston McKennie supported Dusan Vlahovic up front.
Xabi Alonso was dealing with a serious injury crisis in defense, although things were starting to improve for the former Madrid player. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dani Ceballos, David Alaba, Antonio Rudiger, and former Juve man Dean Huijsen were all injured, while Dani Carvahal was suspended and Ferland Mendy was only fit for the bench. Courtois anchored a 4-3- 3 behind the defense of Federico Valverde, Éder Militão, Raúl Ascensio, and Álvaro Carreras. Bellingham was joined by Auréliuan Tchouaméni and Arda Güler in midfield, while Kylian Mbappe led the line flanked by Brahim Diaz and Vinícius.
Things started better than any Juve fan might’ve hoped for. Yildiz had a shot blocked within 25 seconds of kickoff, and in the seventh minute they broke on an excellent counterattack when Cambiaso’s cross-field pass found Kalulu with no one within 30 yards of him. The Frenchman barreled downfield with Vlahovic to his left and several trailers behind him, but tried to force the ball into the big Serb through a couple of defenders, one of whom dug out the cross. Three minutes later McKennie decided to test Courtois from distance, forcing him to parry his shot around the post. A few minutes later Gatti—who clearly wanted to add to his tally of excellent goals scored in Spain—fired from 20 yards out, nearly fooling Courtois with a low shot that came close to squirming under his arm as he got down to stop the ball.
Over the first 15 minutes, Juve had outshot Madrid 3-0—certainly not an outcome anyone was expecting to coming into the game. But from that point until halftime Real slowly began to throttle Juve’s ability to counter. Tchouaméni took their first shot in the 16th minute, but his header off a corner went right to Di Gregorio. Corners became a theme for the men in white as the half wore on, eventually tallying nine before the first period came to a close. Gatti had to make a nifty block on Mbappe, while Di Gregorio pushed a near-post drive from Díaz behind and Kalulu blocked Tchouaméni’s shot from inside the box.
The problem was that Juve’s counterattack, which had served them so well in the first 15 minutes but now completely deserted them. When they did get the ball and try to move it forward, they were often tentative and visually second-guessing themselves when they had shots or passes open to them. It was constant pressure from Real, and Mbappe finally broke free and first-timed a rolling ball in the left channel. He was looking for the far post, but Di Gregorio anticipated him and was already moving in that direction when Mbappe struck. Di Gregorio saved the ball less with his hands and much more with his face, but still parried it well out of danger.
As the second half began, Juve again had a burst of earlier energy. A bad giveaway in the back by Madrid gave Kalulu an opportunity to open the scoring within two minutes of the restart, but Militão recovered to block the shot. Three minutes later, Juve had what was perhaps their best chance of the game when Kelly booted a ball clear of his own box, only to put it in front of a streaking Vlahovic, who had Militáo chasing him stride-for-stride but was still able to do everything he was supposed to do to get the shot off, only to be denied by the trailing leg of Courtois, which managed to graze the ball enough to divert the ball away from the goal.
Real mounted another charge on the other end, forcing no fewer than three blocks in the space of three minutes. Cambiaso had a shot take a tricky deflection but Courtois managed to get to it again.
It was in this back-and-forth that Real opened the scoring in the 57th minute. If you’re looking to blame someone, the men tracking Vinícius’s run on the left side of the box are a good place to start. The Brazilian twisted and turned with the ball, eventually squirming free of both Kalulu and McKennie, then firing across goal. The shot beat Di Gregorio but thumped off the bottom of the goalpost—but that was a very temporary reprieve, as Bellingham slipped past a ball-watching Kelly to slam home the rebound.
A few minutes after the equalizer, Díaz came sliding in on Thuram and ended up hitting him in the leg with exposed studs. It was a bad tackle and referee Slavko Vincic immediately procured a yellow card, but a closer look revealed that a VAR review was perhaps in order to see whether or not it should’ve been upgraded to red. No such review materialized, and Díaz got to play on as a very lucky boy.
It was a relief to Madrid, who had Juve on the ropes and continued looking for the killing blow. In the 71st minute Di Gregorio again denied Mbappe, then Díaz on the rebound. Less than 60 seconds later Gatti was called in for yet another block, this time clearing a Díaz shot off the line.
Juve managed to stay standing, and Tudor played his biggest card with 15 minutes left when he made a triple sub, including sending on Jonathan David and Loïs Openda up front and Manuel Locatelli into the middle of the park. They took a few minutes to get themselves set, but with four minutes left a beautiful long pass by Gatti sent the two new forwards right through the defense. David took a pass from Openda and then returned the favor, but Openda took a second too long to set up his shot and a sliding Ascensio.
As stoppage time ticked away, Juve had another chance to steal a point, through an unlikely man: Filip Kostic. On to replace Cambiaso in the dying minutes, took a short corner in the fourth minute out of the five and cut inside before hitting a thunderous shot that Courtois had to punch away with his fists. A failed Real counter was snuffed out at the last moment, at which point Vincic had seen enough and ended the game, pushing Juve’s winless streak to seven games in all competitions.
