[CL] JUVENTUS 2-2 Tottenham Hotspur [February 13th 2018] (10 Viewers)

[soccerr9]

Think they are for Basel and Porto, Spurs had the hardest draw along with Chelsea of all the English teams yet we were the better team on your ground and controlled the game after a suicide first 8 minutes. Think Chelsea may struggle depending if Player power is still going on there as they want their manager out like they did with JM. Think Man U will overcome Seville so that could mean 4 PL teams in last 8, with Possible 1 French team, 1 Italian, 1 German & 1 Spanish.

Now I'd say that shows a power change in Europe. City v Barca will probably be the final if they avoid each other and hate to say it but City will win it. Their crooked money will win and it will be UEFA that need to look at themselves as FFP is a joke for the likes of City, Chelsea, PSG, and even Barca and Real Madrid.

Spurs dominated possession and control. That is indisputable. They were the better team in that regard.

What I don't understand is this narrative where Spurs were only vulnerable in the 10 minutes in which they went 2-0 down.

-30th minute Higuain missed from point blank range which would have made it 3-0. Instead 5 minutes later Kane makes it 2-1.

-Costa gets taken down in the 44th minute. Higuain missed a PK that would have made it 3-1.

-In the 55-60th minute, Mandzukic heads the ball from 5 yards out straight to Lloris (about the same distance as Kane's miss in 1st half).

-In the 75-80th minute, Bernardeschi cuts left inside the box where Lloris made a fantastic save. Benatia heads it slightly over on the ensuing corner.

-In the 85th minute Costa broke into the box, sent in a cross that was 2 feet away from being a Vertonghan own goal.

Juve had the ball for roughly 25 minutes and created 10 chances. Tottenham had the ball for 65 minutes and created an equal number. Juve had two more attempts inside the box with Spurs trying more from distance.

None of this strikes me as "domination." If possession equals domination instead of chances, then Fiorentina recently dominated Juve too. Napoli as well. For whatever reason, in certain matches unless Juve have to score, Allegri's Juve almost always gives up the initiative to the opponent.

 

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[s4tch]

^good post

spurs were shaky in defense all along. with some stability in midfield, we could be back into this tie even in london.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

Honestly, dont take that guy serious. I still remember how he talked the Bayern Munich job down, when klopp was linked with a move away from Liverpool for Bayern.

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...gen-klopp-to-swap-liverpool-for-bayern-munich

Since then I just hated this guy. “Do you think Its an appealing job at the moment, Bayern Munich?”

Like managing one of the giants in European football from day to day lose Its appeal

His son plays for my local team

 

[Bianconero81]

^good post

spurs were shaky in defense all along. with some stability in midfield, we could be back into this tie even in london.

Of course we can, but we need to approach the return leg with no fear. This is exactly the same situation we were in against Bayern 2 years ago, and we were seconds away from a QF place, because we took the initiative and played without fear. We should've and could've buried Bayern in that game.

 

[Hist]

Let me be clear before anything, I 100% agree that we can absolutely beat them if we have a good game. We certainly have enough quality in the side for it.

However, I don't see this as a completely uncharacteristic performance from us these days. Look at the Atalanta game from earlier in the season, look at the first Barcelona game (multiple injuries I know, but we were dominated all the same), and if you go back into previous CL seasons you can easily find similar games where we just seemed to break down, retreat into our shell and give up. I don't think it's that much of an overreaction to perceive us as having some serious issues and being upset over that.

I agree.

 

[SpursBoy]

Spurs dominated possession and control. That is indisputable. They were the better team in that regard.

What I don't understand is this narrative where Spurs were only vulnerable in the 10 minutes in which they went 2-0 down.

-30th minute Higuain missed from point blank range which would have made it 3-0. Instead 5 minutes later Kane makes it 2-1.

-Costa gets taken down in the 44th minute. Higuain missed a PK that would have made it 3-1.

-In the 55-60th minute, Mandzukic heads the ball from 5 yards out straight to Lloris (about the same distance as Kane's miss in 1st half).

-In the 75-80th minute, Bernardeschi cuts left inside the box where Lloris made a fantastic save. Benatia heads it slightly over on the ensuing corner.

-In the 85th minute Costa broke into the box, sent in a cross that was 2 feet away from being a Vertonghan own goal.

Juve had the ball for roughly 25 minutes and created 10 chances. Tottenham had the ball for 65 minutes and created an equal number. Juve had two more attempts inside the box with Spurs trying more from distance.

None of this strikes me as "domination." If possession equals domination instead of chances, then Fiorentina recently dominated Juve too. Napoli as well. For whatever reason, in certain matches unless Juve have to score, Allegri's Juve almost always gives up the initiative to the opponent.

Of course I could point out that the first goal was offside, I could mention that Kane missed a point blank header, I could mention that Buffon spilled the ball at least twice or that Kane shot wide as did Eriksen and Alli.

Your defence was as bad as ours and we will have two better player in our defence at Wembley

 

[pitbull]

Of course I could point out that the first goal was offside, I could mention that Kane missed a point blank header, I could mention that Buffon spilled the ball at least twice or that Kane shot wide as did Eriksen and Alli.

Your defence was as bad as ours and we will have two better player in our defence at Wembley

What's your point with all of this? Juventus obviously played well below par while Tottenham played a game that all of England is proud of, yet the game ended in a draw. This should give you an idea of what will happen in the return leg if Juventus actually show up or Tottenham has a bad day, I wouldn't be overly confident in your place.

 

[SpursBoy]

What's your point with all of this? Juventus obviously played well below par while Tottenham played a game that all of England is proud of, yet the game ended in a draw. This should give you an idea of what will happen in the return leg if Juventus actually show up or Tottenham has a bad day, I wouldn't be overly confident in your place.

Tottenham, in my opinion, didn't play anything like they can we looked shaky at times, that doesn't normally happen and as I said the team will be stronger at home

Over, NO. But certainly advantage us. You won't stop Kane scoring so you will need at least 3, that I don't think will happen.

 

[enzo]

Of course we can, but we need to approach the return leg with no fear. This is exactly the same situation we were in against Bayern 2 years ago, and we were seconds away from a QF place, because we took the initiative and played without fear. We should've and could've buried Bayern in that game.

Yeah, but we collapsed. It will be an interesting game for sure. It definitely should give us an true boost in confidence, should we prevail in this situation.

 

[B3N]

Thankfully @Fresh is still banned. He would have trolled the heck out of everyone with his love for arry and alli.

 

[DAiDEViL]

Thankfully @Fresh is still banned. He would have trolled the heck out of everyone with his love for arry and alli.

He'll be back soon

 

[enzo]

Thankfully @Fresh is still banned. He would have trolled the heck out of everyone with his love for arry and alli.

What did he do?

 

[Xperd]

Tottenham, in my opinion, didn't play anything like they can we looked shaky at times, that doesn't normally happen and as I said the team will be stronger at home

Over, NO. But certainly advantage us. You won't stop Kane scoring so you will need at least 3, that I don't think will happen.

Thats only if you score two

And besides , many dint expect Juventus to concede 2 at home to Spurs likewise you cant be so certain that Spurs will be iron tight at the back just because its a home game.

Its a knockout game, not a league game. Juventus will be coming there to win. And based on the first leg, Juventus know Spurs are there for the taking if they create enough chances. Allegri is right. There will be more pressure on you to keep your advantage.

 

[Vialli_92]

What's your point with all of this? Juventus obviously played well below par while Tottenham played a game that all of England is proud of, yet the game ended in a draw. This should give you an idea of what will happen in the return leg if Juventus actually show up or Tottenham has a bad day, I wouldn't be overly confident in your place.

Well we have seen what happens when we take the initiative

We score and retreat into our own half

We will make the same mistake regardless if we are winning or losing playing like we are an underdog team puts us at a disadvantage no matter what the score is

We need to play without fear for 90 minutes which will never happen under Allegri

 

[pitbull]

Tottenham, in my opinion, didn't play anything like they can we looked shaky at times, that doesn't normally happen and as I said the team will be stronger at home

Over, NO. But certainly advantage us. You won't stop Kane scoring so you will need at least 3, that I don't think will happen.

Why wouldn't we stop Kane from scoring? Last season against Barca we stopped MSN from scoring in both legs, same Barca that scored 6 against PSG in one game in previous round, surely you don't think Kane is somehow more dangerous than those guys, right?

This tie still depends on whether we sort ourselves out or not, if we do I have no doubt we'll qualify, if we bring the flawed game we played in Turin it might go either way. But respect to your side for managing a draw against Juve, that's a big accomplishment for Spurs

 

[B3N]

He'll be back soon

Woulda been banned after the game for sure.

What did he do?

don't know exactly, usual trolling I guess.

 

[Valerio.]

I'm not optimistic to pass
I just hope we win the league and next year get a better manager
it's crucial to win the league cause next year Napoli will collapse with player wanting to leave and so on.
So you close their "cycle" without a championship.
But this time they don't have a Cavani or Higuain to sell.
Mertens is 30yrs,Callejon almost 32 old and rest will not fetch enough in today's market to replace unless you're extremely lucky.

 

[pitbull]

Well we have seen what happens when we take the initiative

We score and retreat into our own half

We will make the same mistake regardless if we are winning or losing playing like we are an underdog team puts us at a disadvantage no matter what the score is

We need to play without fear for 90 minutes which will never happen under Allegri

We didn't retreat on purpose, Allegri said that he didn't order players to do that, we just got pushed back and didn't manage to overcome that pressure because we kept losing stupid balls.

We've played plenty of games under Allegri without fear, that's bullshit and you know it.

 

[DAiDEViL]

Woulda been banned after the game for sure. .

Several people should be banned by now, but the mods have lost their ban-hammer it seems.

 

[Rollie]

So I just finished watching the match, and I can't help but think that Spurs should be counting their lucky stars, especially after the way things started. Yeah, I'm obviously a biased Juventus fan, but on the balance of 'good' chances in the first half, it could easily have been 3-1 or 4-2 Juve - if we were to say count Kane's header, and Higgy's two absolutely glaring misses. That penalty he did score wasn't particularly pretty, either -- but I thought Gonzalo was good on the night, and is looking much more spry than he was a couple months ago. That bodes well for the second half of the season.

Our team is in the middle of a full blown injury crisis (to the point we dressed Simone Muratore from the youth setup) played like utter shit, and still could have absolutely shredded that bullshit backline of theirs. That defense was seriously unimpressive. Also, Aurier's a bit lucky that he didn't get a yellow card on that Costa penalty, or he'd have been in real trouble when he got that yellow in the second. Dude had himself a terrible night, was a total liability out there.

For all of their possession, Spurs had 4 chances in the first half -- and that's being extremely generous, counting Alli's fluffed header on that beauty ball over the top from Eriksen (also Kane's left footed effort that was probably going wide anyway, the header Gigi stopped, can't remember the 4th chance).

Second half, they didn't create much of anything before the goal. A couple of shots from outside the box (Kane, Eriksen) and that was about it. Meanwhile, Lloris makes a phenomenal fingertip save on Bernardeschi, and Mandzukic misses a wide-open point blank header on a set-piece. We definitely had some golden chances.

If people want to talk about dominating possession, that's totally fair. Tottenham played very well in a difficult environment, pressed extremely well, and clearly in that setup they had way more athleticism in midfield than Juve. Our midfield got absolutely steamrolled, which is intensely frustrating considering what happened in Cardiff. Dembele had a really good match. Fuck, do we ever miss a healthy Marchisio right now; wonder if a full offseason will help him bounce back. Khedira was a passenger for basically all 65 of his minutes. Mandzukic wasn't particularly good either, defending WAY too deep in that 4-4-2. The whole team was too deep, but Mario just kills me when he gets that low, kills our transition game down the left.

Anyway, talk about Tottenham's possession dominance, fine; I know we all hate to see that discrepancy, especially at home. However, if we're talking about quality scoring chances during this match, Juventus definitely had the (much) better chances. That's without our best attacker/player, without Matuidi, without Cuadrado, without a match fit Marchisio. Things could look quite different next match.

Gotta also say that I thought Tottenham's goals were fairly rubbish. That first one required an unforced turnover from Higuain at midfield, followed by Giorgio going for a swim (while nearly at midfield), finished off by Buffon mistiming his jog to the edge of the box. It's a good through ball, and a nice finish from Kane as we'd expect, but there were 3 significant errors on that first goal.

The second goal is also a clumsy foul by Chiello at the edge of the box, an embarrassingly terrible wall by our guys, and Gigi stinking it up a bit. God love him, not going to put the blame on him in the larger sense, but this was not a particularly good game for Gigi. In past years, there is no way that shot beats him.

Credit to Tottenham, they played very well, and that's a fantastic result for them. But, again, they certainly ran into Juventus at the right time, given the guys we're missing. That team is definitely vulnerable at the back. Their fullbacks played ridiculously high, it's a high-line in general, and there is a ton of space to be exploited there in the return match.

We need Dybala and Matuidi back, Max has gotta get the midfield sorted out, but this tie is still wide-open. Given all the talk of dominance I heard from British pundits and on these boards, I was expecting much worse than the terrible performance by Juventus that I saw.

This definitely ain't over, can't wait for the rematch.