Antonio Conte (140 Viewers)
- Thread starter Dostoevsky
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We do not have any inability in scoring in Europe. Where did you get that from? Last year we scored 3 goals against Chelsea in Turin and 2 goals in Stanford Bridge. We also scored 1 goal against the Danes away and 4 goals at home. Further, we scored 1 goal home and 1 away against Shakhtar. In the Last 16 round we scored 5 goals over two legs against Celtic. There has not been a single game where Juve failed to score in Europe last season and that was back when we didn't have Tevez or Llorente. Our European campaign last year has been a great success by any standard.
Now lets talk about this season.
We scored 3 past copenhagen home and 1 away. We scored 2 past madrid home and 1 away. We scored 2 past Galatasaray home and didn't score away.
Thats it. Of all the matches that Juve played in 2 seasons in Europe we didn't score in only one single game where the pitch was horrible and the match got played over two days. In all the other matches we had no problems scoring regardless of who was playing in our attack.
How did you deduce that we can't score in Europe from this? We also don't seem to have any trouble scoring freely in Serie A against the very same Napoli you admire. And yes we could have qualified from Napoli's group if we were on form. Dont forget that we are a lot harder to defeat than Napoli and that we perform on big occasions. It goes without saying that this is all hypothetical.
Our attack is more than good enough. It was defense and Buffon that were failing us both in Europe and Serie A at the beginning of the season. Go through the goals we conceded against Galatasaray and Madrid and you'll see what I am talking about. I'd hate to have to bring you the highlights of these matches and their Serie A parallels during that same period. And yes keeping players concentrated is part of Conte's job its not all on the players.
To answer your question, our season is an average one given our objectives. Our objective was to qualify from the group stage and retain the league title. We failed to qualify but it seems we will retain the title. A EL win is only good for image and fans' satisfaction.. but financially it is still worse than our start of season objectives. If we fail to win the EL (which is very possible given that its a cup competition) the season would still be average.
Last season we did great and over-achieved. This season we will under-achieve no matter what we do in the EL.
To your final question. I dont take this 3 times in a row success as equivalent to lippi's. Serie A was much more competitive back then even if Juve itself was much more wealthy and had a better squad. Its closest to Mancini's domestic run with Inter only our title challengers didnt have points deducted or relegated. Also Mancini didnt go a season unbeaten and started off with a very formidable Inter squad and a big wallet (compared to the Del Neri mess Conte started with).
Now lets talk about this season.
We scored 3 past copenhagen home and 1 away. We scored 2 past madrid home and 1 away. We scored 2 past Galatasaray home and didn't score away.
Thats it. Of all the matches that Juve played in 2 seasons in Europe we didn't score in only one single game where the pitch was horrible and the match got played over two days. In all the other matches we had no problems scoring regardless of who was playing in our attack.
How did you deduce that we can't score in Europe from this? We also don't seem to have any trouble scoring freely in Serie A against the very same Napoli you admire. And yes we could have qualified from Napoli's group if we were on form. Dont forget that we are a lot harder to defeat than Napoli and that we perform on big occasions. It goes without saying that this is all hypothetical.
Our attack is more than good enough. It was defense and Buffon that were failing us both in Europe and Serie A at the beginning of the season. Go through the goals we conceded against Galatasaray and Madrid and you'll see what I am talking about. I'd hate to have to bring you the highlights of these matches and their Serie A parallels during that same period. And yes keeping players concentrated is part of Conte's job its not all on the players.
To answer your question, our season is an average one given our objectives. Our objective was to qualify from the group stage and retain the league title. We failed to qualify but it seems we will retain the title. A EL win is only good for image and fans' satisfaction.. but financially it is still worse than our start of season objectives. If we fail to win the EL (which is very possible given that its a cup competition) the season would still be average.
Last season we did great and over-achieved. This season we will under-achieve no matter what we do in the EL.
To your final question. I dont take this 3 times in a row success as equivalent to lippi's. Serie A was much more competitive back then even if Juve itself was much more wealthy and had a better squad. Its closest to Mancini's domestic run with Inter only our title challengers didnt have points deducted or relegated. Also Mancini didnt go a season unbeaten and started off with a very formidable Inter squad and a big wallet (compared to the Del Neri mess Conte started with).
I am sure you well aware that i am talking about this season's disappointment. Last season we did alright, considering it was our first season in CL after some time. But lets not take the fact that Chelsea and Celtic of last season are not the same team they were. Cant imagine the fans here are paying so much respect to Celtic.
You highlighted the goals we scored, but you fail to mention out of 9 goals we scored, 4 were PK goals. From open play we only manage 5 goals. It's true defense was a problem but that was the obvious one. What many fails to see is the offense is not doing that great either. And not to forget, we have a Tevez who haven't scored in Europe for 4 season. And supposedly, this was the signing that suppose to elevate us in Europe. Without Tevez signing , we could still easily win this weak league.
Dumped out of group stage for CL, leading Serie A by 8 points, top favourites for EL, and the finals in Turin, failure to win the EL for me this is a disappointing season.
Especially with the star signings for offense. And like you said, we could qualify from Arsenal group, is hypothetical. If we are on form, bla bla bla.
The fact is we failed to qualify from an easier group.
Conte's first season was impressive. Was mindblowing. We nick the league against an AC Milan which had WC players like Zlatan and T.Silva. And we did it unbeaten. But the season latter, the team carried it self and we didn't really have a competition with Milan selling their star players.
I agree with the comparison against Mancini though. Both of them were big fish in a small pond.
You highlighted the goals we scored, but you fail to mention out of 9 goals we scored, 4 were PK goals. From open play we only manage 5 goals. It's true defense was a problem but that was the obvious one. What many fails to see is the offense is not doing that great either. And not to forget, we have a Tevez who haven't scored in Europe for 4 season. And supposedly, this was the signing that suppose to elevate us in Europe. Without Tevez signing , we could still easily win this weak league.
Dumped out of group stage for CL, leading Serie A by 8 points, top favourites for EL, and the finals in Turin, failure to win the EL for me this is a disappointing season.
Especially with the star signings for offense. And like you said, we could qualify from Arsenal group, is hypothetical. If we are on form, bla bla bla.
The fact is we failed to qualify from an easier group.
Conte's first season was impressive. Was mindblowing. We nick the league against an AC Milan which had WC players like Zlatan and T.Silva. And we did it unbeaten. But the season latter, the team carried it self and we didn't really have a competition with Milan selling their star players.
I agree with the comparison against Mancini though. Both of them were big fish in a small pond.
We are debating two different things here. The first is that Juve is unable to score in Europe and the second is that Conte is a big fish in a small pond.
Lets start by the first:
You claimed that Conte's teams can't score in Europe. I went through our two seasons in Europe and showed you that we had no trouble scoring especially last season where we scored an awful lot of goals. Conte was our coach and we had a much tougher group than this season. So we could say that on the attacking front, we had one great season and one okay (but not terrible) season. This hardly represents a trend at all. Half of the data says the attack did okay and the other half says we did more than okay. Mind you, both Celtic and Chelsea are teams that usually do nothing other than defend and park the bus. Celtic's defense did well against Barca's attack and Chelsea back then won a CL title just by defending properly. So to conclude this point, your claim which states that Conte's teams cannot defense is not supported by the evidence and is probably false given the little evidence we have.
Now lets move on to the second subject of debate: whether Conte is a big fish in a small pond.
You are making it seem that last season was a fluke and this season is the norm for Conte as a coach. I am arguing the opposite. This season was the fluke and last season is the norm. We both do not have sufficient evidence from CL games to conclusively end that argument (Since it has only been two seasons) but I can give you indicators as to why my hypothesis might be closer to reality.
1) In our first European season, Conte did well outside of the small pond (Serie A). Thats half of the data already.
2) If Conte was a big fish in a small pond then we should find that Juve's CL performances this season to be much worse than the Serie A performances that took place in the same time period. In other words, If your statement is correct, we should find that Juve was doing great in Serie A and horrible in CL. This does not hold simply because we were terrible in Serie A too. Our defense was gifting goals in both Serie A & the CL during that very same time period only we received favors from referees and were lucky to come out with the full points in Serie A. Conte during that period was not a big fish in Serie A, he was lucky and poor refereeing helped him to 4-6 points that Juve didn't deserve. A proper big fish in a small pond would have dominated in Serie A and won every match with ease and then suddenly flopped in Europe before going back to win with ease domestically (Mancini's Inter). Juve's terrible form during that period stretched over both competitions and wasn't specific to Serie A. This is not how big fishes in small ponds perform.
To conclude both points, we both agree that this season shrinks in comparison to our last season and that we have under-performed regardless of what we do in the EL. We only have two seasons to judge by which is not enough to make any accurate assessments yet. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that only two seasons are enough to make a proper judgment, half the data (last season) alone goes against both your hypotheses. The other half of the data (this season) does not indicate that Conte's teams are unable to score in Europe (though it may be slightly worrying) and clearly indicates that Juve's poor form in Europe was paralleled by poor form in Serie A in the same department (GK and defense) during the same time period. This is not a characteristic of a big fish in a small pond.
I hope this puts the matter to rest.
Lets start by the first:
You claimed that Conte's teams can't score in Europe. I went through our two seasons in Europe and showed you that we had no trouble scoring especially last season where we scored an awful lot of goals. Conte was our coach and we had a much tougher group than this season. So we could say that on the attacking front, we had one great season and one okay (but not terrible) season. This hardly represents a trend at all. Half of the data says the attack did okay and the other half says we did more than okay. Mind you, both Celtic and Chelsea are teams that usually do nothing other than defend and park the bus. Celtic's defense did well against Barca's attack and Chelsea back then won a CL title just by defending properly. So to conclude this point, your claim which states that Conte's teams cannot defense is not supported by the evidence and is probably false given the little evidence we have.
Now lets move on to the second subject of debate: whether Conte is a big fish in a small pond.
You are making it seem that last season was a fluke and this season is the norm for Conte as a coach. I am arguing the opposite. This season was the fluke and last season is the norm. We both do not have sufficient evidence from CL games to conclusively end that argument (Since it has only been two seasons) but I can give you indicators as to why my hypothesis might be closer to reality.
1) In our first European season, Conte did well outside of the small pond (Serie A). Thats half of the data already.
2) If Conte was a big fish in a small pond then we should find that Juve's CL performances this season to be much worse than the Serie A performances that took place in the same time period. In other words, If your statement is correct, we should find that Juve was doing great in Serie A and horrible in CL. This does not hold simply because we were terrible in Serie A too. Our defense was gifting goals in both Serie A & the CL during that very same time period only we received favors from referees and were lucky to come out with the full points in Serie A. Conte during that period was not a big fish in Serie A, he was lucky and poor refereeing helped him to 4-6 points that Juve didn't deserve. A proper big fish in a small pond would have dominated in Serie A and won every match with ease and then suddenly flopped in Europe before going back to win with ease domestically (Mancini's Inter). Juve's terrible form during that period stretched over both competitions and wasn't specific to Serie A. This is not how big fishes in small ponds perform.
To conclude both points, we both agree that this season shrinks in comparison to our last season and that we have under-performed regardless of what we do in the EL. We only have two seasons to judge by which is not enough to make any accurate assessments yet. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that only two seasons are enough to make a proper judgment, half the data (last season) alone goes against both your hypotheses. The other half of the data (this season) does not indicate that Conte's teams are unable to score in Europe (though it may be slightly worrying) and clearly indicates that Juve's poor form in Europe was paralleled by poor form in Serie A in the same department (GK and defense) during the same time period. This is not a characteristic of a big fish in a small pond.
I hope this puts the matter to rest.
The difference you keep on stressing here, is form in Europe. The great Celtic defense you mean, oh my the same Celtic defense that let in 3 goals against a lousy Milan and 6 goals against Barca. And the Chelsea team, that had its coach sacked. And my argument on scoring is for this season CL , not last season. This season our scoring couldn't bail our defence out.
Let's see how we make this EL and next season CL and then you can say form or really we suck in Europe.
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Losing to the champions they say, losing 4-0 on aggregate they never say.
Let's see how we make this EL and next season CL and then you can say form or really we suck in Europe.
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Losing to the champions they say, losing 4-0 on aggregate they never say.
Again, how does a coach who played 2 seasons in the CL scoring lots of goals in the first and a mediocre amount of goals in the second be labelled unable to score in Europe? Why is your assessment based only on this season? is this a different Conte or a doppelganger? You conveniently ignore the parts of his record where he disproves your claim and focus on the part that somewhat barely supports it. Ironically enough you are using the Celtic of this season to weaken the Celtic of last season.
You are clutching at straws here brother.
You are clutching at straws here brother.