For the second time in as many years, the first Derby d’Italia of the season was an absolute roller coaster ride. And just like last season, Juventus staged a late-game comeback to eliminate an Inter Milan lead. But this time around, Juve didn’t just tie the game up, they were able to claim all three points, with Vasilije Adžić being the unlikely hero with his stoppage-time rocket to give the Bianconeri a 4-3 win.
It was certainly a wild swing of emotions for Igor Tudor is his first Derby d’Italia
as Juventus manager.
So after catching his breath a little bit, Tudor was able to discuss what he thought about his team’s performance — one where he wasn’t exactly pleased with overall quality of how his squad played.
“We won today, even if it was not a great performance.”
“In a match like this, there are no favourites and previous form is wiped out. Inter have enormous quality, they are world class. Our performance was not what we could’ve done, especially in terms of pressing, but the hunger of those who came on helped us earn this victory. I don’t know if it was deserved, or if a draw was fair, but this is football.”
Tudor, who took over for Thiago Motta in mid-March, understandably heaped a lot of praise in Adžić’s direction, as the young Montenegrin scoring his first-ever senior level goal at Juventus following his summer 2024 move to Turin. Prior to Saturday’s heroics, Adžić had only played a grand total of 83 minutes between his eight appearances in all competitions last season and a brief cameo at the Club World Cup earlier this summer.
“For the last five or six months we’ve been working with him, because we believe in his quality. We were trying to change some of the habits he had that we didn’t like, and he accepted that with the right attitude. We saw all week he was in good shape and had the idea of throwing him on.
“He has a strike from distance that is honestly rare in football. He must take this goal as a sign to keep working even harder.”
Tudor does know something about scoring a goal in the Juve-Inter rivalry, having found the back of the net against the arch-rivals from Milan in 2002.
“The emotions were different, but considering the way this game was going, it was joyful. A truly crazy match.”
During his pre-match press conference, Tudor spoke about how he’s not playing on changing his tactical setup at all. That turned out to be a little bit of deception on his part — not only did he give Dusan Vlahovic his first start of the season, but he also deployed more of a 3-5-1-1 formation compared to the 3-4-2-1 that we have become accustomed to him using since he became manager in the spring.
It was also a result of Teun Koopmeiners being in the starting lineup, with the Dutchman stepping into the starting spot left by Francisco Conceição missing the Derby d’Italia due to injury. Koopmeiners played a deeper midfield role compared to where Conceição usually plays behind the striker, with Kenan Yildiz setting up as more of a supporting striker behind Vlahovic.
“The idea was a diamond midfield with Yildiz behind Vlahovic, but we didn’t do the pressing at the right time, we didn’t do it the way we should’ve done. We were getting too deep too quickly. He did find some spaces behind the striker, it’s an idea we can repeat in future, as Yildiz is so talented, he ought to be closer to the goal and less wide. We had played in a different style, but we must adapt now that we have three centre-forwards, so think about how to get the best out of these players.”
Juventus are back at home on Tuesday night when they play their first Champions League league phase game against Borussia Dortmund.
