Within the span of five days, two opposing managers in the visitors’ dugout had the same kind of expression on their face as the final minutes ticked off the clock at the Allianz Stadium. First it was
Jose Mourinho as Juve handed his Benfica a crushing blow for their Champions League hopes. And now, with his squad already decimated by injuries, it was our old buddy Antonio Conte putting two fingers up to his face to rub his eyes after Juventus’ thundered home a third and final goal.
Both games, both wins, were signs of just how much this Juventus squad have changed under the man who — especially considering the opponent this weekend — has started to put his stamp on this Juve team.
Luciano Spalletti’s Juventus beat Conte and Napoli 3-0 on Sunday at the Allianz Stadium. It was a stark contrast from what we saw from these two teams 49 days earlier in Naples, with Napoli taking advantage of Spalletti’s own experimentation to get three points in their first matchup against their former manager. But on Sunday, with Conte’s Napoli still dealing with the same kind of injury crunch that they were last month, Spalletti won it with the kind of football we actually expect from him — there was pressing, there was quick recovery of the ball, there were quality chances being created, all of it. This was a Spalletti win if there ever was one.
And it came against Napoli.
Say what you want about their injury situation, but this is still Juventus beating Napoli.
They were beatable back in December because of who they didn’t have on the field, but Juventus couldn’t get it done then. This time around, though, Juve did the exact opposite of that. They got the lead against Napoli thanks to Jonathan David’s third goal in his last four Serie A games, they then hunkered down and took Napoli’s biggest punch of the night and only true extended period of pressure, and then they put them away with Kenan Yildiz scoring his career-best eighth goal of the league season. The cherry on top came from Filip Kostic of all people, with a left-footed strike we haven’t seen from him all that often ever since he first wore bianconero under Max Allegri.
It was a statement kind of win regardless of what shape Napoli’s currently in.
This is a different Juventus than the one we saw in southern Italy nearly two months ago. Spalletti has put his stamp on this squad, they’ve grown in confidence since the loss to Napoli and they’re playing an overall much-improved brand of football compared to the first few weeks of Spalletti’s tenure as Juve manager.
That doesn’t mean Sunday night’s win was perfect by any means. There are still some lingering issues that hamper this squad — cough cough Andrea Cambiaso giving the ball away non-stop cough cough — and will likely do so because that’s just what this roster is. But, even with those faults, Spalletti has gotten this team to play so much better on the whole and just as a collective unit compared to how they were looking in the final weeks of Igor Tudor’s ill-fated tenure at the start of the season.
I just can’t get past the fact that they withstood Napoli’s only real extended push forward to try and even the game, defended things well, barely gave Michele Di Gregorio a thing to do and then delivered a knockout blow with about 15 minutes to go. That feels like a pretty good sign that this team, while still very much a flawed one, is really on an upward kind of trajectory under their manager now that he’s about to finish his third month in charge.
And just as a topper to all of this: With how Inter Milan are currently playing right now, did this Juventus win just put one of the final nails in the coffin when it comes to Napoli’s Scudetto hopes? Seems like it.
I’d call all of that a pretty good Sunday for Juventus.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- That was … how do I phrase this properly so people get it easily … incredibly enjoyable. Yeah, that’s it.
- ANTONIO CONTE SALTA CON NOI!!!!!!!
- They say good things come in three, right? Well here’s three good things all within the last four days …
- Juventus Women beat Napoli (albeit with a different owner) in the Coppa Italia Femminile on Thursday.
- Juventus’ primavera squad, in the beautiful black third kit, beat Napoli on Sunday afternoon.
- And now Juventus’ senior squad beat Bald Tony and Napoli at the Allianz. That’s a good weekend.
- Winning a corner within the first 15 seconds? I think that’s coming out on the front foot, folks. (If only Juventus could do something on corner kicks these days …)
- I wholeheartedly support Khephren Thuram playing like he did against Napoli for the rest of this season and his Juventus career. Whether it was because of his dad and brother both being in the stands or his overall form just getting better the last couple of weeks, Thuram was excellent. That was the Thuram of last season that had a whole lot of us excited about his future at the club. More of that, please, KT.
- I mean, Thuram won EIGHT tackles. EIGHT TACKLES! That is insane for a midfielder.
- Weston McKennie’s heat map is a thing of beauty. Just look at this…
- Somebody who also had an impressive kind of heat map with all the work on and off the ball he was doing? That would be a certain Canadian with the last name of David. The man was an absolute workhorse against Napoli. The goal was very well done and a sign of how he was able to use his strength to hold off his man, but overall you can just see his game starting to grow. Same with his confidence, too. He’s said it, Spalletti has said it and now we’re saying it here. He’s not on great form just yet, but David is certainly digging himself out of that early-season hole he found himself in.
- This had to be one of the quietest games that Scott McTominay has had ever since joining Napoli and I feel like the work that Thuram and especially Manuel Locatelli did to mark him out of the game is a huge reason for that. McTominay has been on an absolute heater of late, and yet he barely made a peep against Juventus.
- That Locatelli assist on the David opener was pretty great, too. Don’t forget that part.
- That Fabio Miretti assist after just coming onto the field on Yildiz’s goal was pretty nice, too.
- We would like to thank Juan Jesus for that mistake that led to Yildiz’s goal. Thank you, Mr. Jesus.
- Gleison Bremer good.
- Bremer might also need a rest. He’s started every game since coming back from injury.
- Pierre Kalulu good.
- Lloyd Kelly is also good! What a big step forward he’s made since joining Juventus a year ago now.
- Praising Kelly pretty much every post-game thread I write over the last few weeks? Did not expect that to be the case, but here we are — and I’m quite happy to be proven wrong. Keep doing you, Lloyd.
- That pass that Kelly played to Cambiaso only for Cambiaso to then turn it over on his second touch late in the game, that is just Cambiaso’s form in a nutshell right now.
- At this point, Juan Cabal has to be a better option than whatever it is Cambiaso is as a player these days.
- Di Gregorio had to make one save. It was pretty early in the game. Other than that, dude did not have a whole lot to do — and that’s what we like no matter who’s in goal for Juventus.
- Kostic scored as many goals as he attempted crosses. If only that was always the case, right?
- I say that in jest, but Kostic popping up on the right after Spalletti brought him on was at first more of a defensive move more than anything else. But then it turned into a move that resulted in him scoring a really nice goal thanks to his extreme left-footedness. That works just fine in my book.
- The vibes are good right now, folks. The vibes are really, really good.
- We drink the good bourbon tonight, my friends. This kind of win calls for that.
