As they began the second half of the UEFA Champions League’s League Phase, Juventus knew that a victory was vital. Three points in four games left them out of the playoff spots, and their next two fixtures, against Bodø-Glimt and Pafos, were must-wins to accumulate as many points as possible before ending the schedule with Benfica (cursed) and Monaco (tricky).
But going to Bodø to face the reigning Norwegian champions, who have two more matchdays domestically to try to overcome a one-point deficit
against Viking for the Eliteserien title, is not an easy task. The team is plucky and well coached, and the artificial pitch can be tricky to play on. Oh, and did we mention it was late-November in Scandinavia? The temperature at the Aspmyra Stadion in Bodø hovered around freezing, with the wind chill dipping underneath. The snow pregame was so bad that Damien Comolli and Giorgio Chiellini got stuck in Sweden as they tried to fly to the game. It was piled up around the pitch, and more of the white stuff came down as the game went on.
Not ideal conditions, especially not for a must-win game for a team whose form has been lackluster.
An experimental, rotated squad added to the air of uncertainty as the game kicked off — and uncertainty turned into utter disdain when Juventus completely flopped in the first half. They couldn’t string passes together at all, boxed in by the press and, when they managed to get the ball toward Bodø‘s half of the field, looked completely unable to find any seams to pass the ball.
They left the field to the remonstrations of the Juve fans that had braved the trip north. But in the locker room Luciano Spalletti must have said something that truly lit a fire under the players’ backsides. That, and he introduced Kenan Yildiz from the bench, completely turning the game on its head and helping turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead within 15 minutes. They came agonizingly close to putting the game away as time ticked down, but they couldn’t get that third goal, and when Juan Cabal planted his cleats into Sondre Auklend’s shin in the penalty area three minutes from time, it looked like Juventus had thrown away another win.
But just as the clock ticked into stoppage time, Yildiz went on another marauding run, and when his shot was saved, Jonathan David was there for the rebound, giving the Bianconeri another late result in this year’s Champions League and, at long last, their first win in Europe this year.
Spalletti had promised some squad rotation in his pre-match press conference, and he delivered on that, making five changes to his 3-4-2-1 from Saturday’s disappointing draw in Florence. He was desperately thin in the back, as Bremer and Daniele Rugani were still injured and Federico Gatti stayed home with the flu, and Carlo Pinsoglio remained out as well. Mattia Perin was given a turn in goal, with Pierre Kalulu, Lloyd Kelly, and Teun Koopmeiners screening him. Weston McKennie and Andrea Cambiaso took up the wing-back spots, while Vasilije Adzic got a surprise start alongside Manuel Locatelli. Francisco Conceição and Fabio Miretti took station behind Loïs Openda as the main striker.
Kjetil Knutsen has developed Bodø-Glimt into a team no one in Europe wants to play, especially in the frozen north, and himself into a hot name on the coaching circuit. He was missing defender Jostein Gunderson to suspension, while Haitam Aleesami played hurt and standout winger Jens Petter Hauge was only fit for the bench due to illness. Knutsen went with a 4-3-3 formation. Nikita Haiken stood at the base of the formation, fronted by Fredrik Sjøvold, Aleesami, Odin Bjørtuft, and Fredrik Bjørkan. Patrick Berg, Sondre Fet, and Håkon Evjen made up the midfield, and Isak Määttä and Ole Didrik Blomberg flanked Kasper Høgh up front.
Bodø were the clear aggressors in the early going, executing a relentless press that prevented Juve from getting out of their own half. Berg had a ball blocked into the hands of Perin by McKennie, but it was Conceição who had the first real chance on the other end when he cut inside and and forced Haiken into a diving parry.
As the first half wore on, Bodø simply looked like they were toying with Juve. They could hardly get through their press, and when they did, the Norwegians defending was disciplined and deprived them of any entrances into the box. But it was still Juve who got the closest to goal over the first 25 minutes, when Adzic tried an audacious volley off a cross from Conceição. The ball ended up coming off his knee, but it still came tantalizingly close to going in before landing on the roof of the net.
But the hosts were very much the team in control, and after forcing a succession of blocked shots, they went ahead on a corner in the 27th minute. It was a complete failure of defense, as Blomberg, starting from the top of the box, completely evaded the attention of every Juventus defender, popping up completely unmarked to half-volley a flick from Høgh in from point blank range. Perin tried to get big and did get a foot on it, but the ball kept going into the net, giving Bodø a deserved lead.
Despite Bodø’s dominance, Juve made an attempt to respond, and Conceição had another close call in the 31st minute when Bjørtuft deflected his shot a whisker wide of the upright, and a minute later Adzic nearly surprised Haiken with a near-post header that required another dive to keep away. Bodø wanted a penalty on the other end, but Berg’s shot had gone off Locatelli’s ribcage before deflecting to his hand. Conceição had one last run at Haiken at the very end of the half when McKennie rolled one to him, but he put it right at the keeper.
Consternation was the emotion of the moment as the teams went back into the locker room, Juve having been soundly outplayed in the first 45 minutes. When they emerged, Yildiz replaced Adzic, and within three minutes he’d helped Juve get level. After playing a give-and-go with Locatelli on the left, he sent a pass in for Miretti. Miretti was blatantly tripped in the box, but Dutch referee Danny Makkelie waved off Juve’s penalty appeals. Locatelli, playing until the whistle, chased after the loose ball and laid it back to Yildiz, whose shot was deflected into the path of Openda, who gladly tapped in his first goal in a Juventus shirt.
Six minutes later, it looked as if they’d completed the turnaround. Miretti sent an excellent through ball for Openda, who found Yildiz in the channel. He unselfishly squared it back to a trailing Miretti for an easy score, but Openda had been offside on the first pass, taking yet another goal from the unfortunate Miretti, for whom disallowed goals have become something of a running gag.
But if he couldn’t have his goal, he would settle for an assist. Yildiz’s dribbling was again key, shaking defenders before putting Miretti down the left side of the box in all kinds of space. He took his time to float an excellent ball to McKennie, who soared to fire a powerful header down and through Haiken’s hand to put Juve in front.
Momentum having completely shifted, Juve went after a third goal to kill off the game. Yildiz hit a curler toward the top corner that Haiken diverted with another flying stop. He continued to terrorize the back line, turning Bredde Moe inside out on another dribble and was likely only stopped from scoring by a sliding Sjøvold. Conceição got back into the action with just over 15 minutes left, taking a beautiful long pass from Cambiaso and firing low to the far post, only for Haiken to push it one-handed beyond the post.
It was right after that that Cabal and David were introduced, and Juve looked to lock down the game. Bodø was running out of time, since the 66th minute had only taken a single shot, an absurdly long free kick attempt by Berg that Perin tracked easily. But with five minutes to go, Cabal made his boneheaded mistake, coming in late and hard on Auklend for an easy penalty call. For a moment it looked like Juve were going to get a reprieve when the kick was held for a VAR check to see if Mathias Jørgensen had been offside in the buildup, and replays looked like he was, but evidently not enough for the VAR, who confirmed the penalty. Fet stepped up to it and stroked it right down the middle, as Perin dove to the left.
All the good Juve had done had come tumbling down in an instant. But it turned out there was one last column holding things together.
Of course, Yildiz was at the heart of things. Taking a long ball from Locatelli, he once again tortured Sjøvold, who for a moment thought he’d tackled the ball off him in the box, but Yildiz pried it off his leg, got clear, and fired on goal. The ball took a deflection off Moe and was met with another diving, one-handed parry by Haiken—but he only pushed it a few feet, and David needed only two steps to beat Bjørkan to the ball and side-foot it into the net to resuscitate Juve’s Champions League campaign.
The Canadian nearly had a second less than two minutes later when Yildiz (who else?) got to the byline and sent in another cross. Haiken was overcommitted to Yildiz and David got the ball with the goal gaping, but a desperate lunge by Bjørtuft cleared the ball off the line. Makkelie didn’t add any time to the six minute minimum of added time, and Juve escaped what may have been their least pleasant road trip of the year with a vital victory.
