[CL] JUVENTUS 2-2 Tottenham Hotspur [February 13th 2018] (13 Viewers)
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On the press hyperbole.
The English press and TV love a bit of hyperbole. Sky / BT don't pay £4.5bn for the rights to televise the PL and to then have it all low key and reasonable. Sensational opinion is where it's at for them. They're not going to employ softly spoken pundits who sit on the fence and are reluctant in their opinions. They've an interest in bigging up their investment. It's part of the business model and why PL teams are so rich. We tend to tolerate the sensational punditry because if that's what comes with TV deals that buys us a new £750m stadium, then so be it. But fans and pundits are not one and the same.
And on the 2nd leg.
I've said this before, but was ridiculed by some on here, who seemed to think Spurs were crap before the 1st leg - the way to beat Tottenham is to choke the midfield with numbers and press the back 4. Juve has the players to be able to play that way. In fact, you even had the team to do that in the last game with the 4-2-3-1 set up. Perhaps that's why Allegri was so incensed after the match? Maybe that was his gameplan and it wasn't executed? Any more of this passive catenaccio stuff and I think you're gone. To dare is to do, and all that. I hope Juve play as well as they can, because then we're in for a belter of a cup-tie.
Tie of the round coming up at Wembley!
The English press and TV love a bit of hyperbole. Sky / BT don't pay £4.5bn for the rights to televise the PL and to then have it all low key and reasonable. Sensational opinion is where it's at for them. They're not going to employ softly spoken pundits who sit on the fence and are reluctant in their opinions. They've an interest in bigging up their investment. It's part of the business model and why PL teams are so rich. We tend to tolerate the sensational punditry because if that's what comes with TV deals that buys us a new £750m stadium, then so be it. But fans and pundits are not one and the same.
And on the 2nd leg.
I've said this before, but was ridiculed by some on here, who seemed to think Spurs were crap before the 1st leg - the way to beat Tottenham is to choke the midfield with numbers and press the back 4. Juve has the players to be able to play that way. In fact, you even had the team to do that in the last game with the 4-2-3-1 set up. Perhaps that's why Allegri was so incensed after the match? Maybe that was his gameplan and it wasn't executed? Any more of this passive catenaccio stuff and I think you're gone. To dare is to do, and all that. I hope Juve play as well as they can, because then we're in for a belter of a cup-tie.
Tie of the round coming up at Wembley!
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.
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.
I was angry and sad after the game, because we could've gotten a lot better result out of this, but we still stand a good chance here.
depends on how you define fear I guess, over the years Allegri's Juve have controlled a lot of ties against strong teams both in CL and Serie A and won convincingly, you can't control something you fear. if you think fear is shown whenever you hoof a ball out of defense instead of trying to short pass your way out of a press, I disagree.
10-11 men in our own half and offering nothing in attack
That is fear
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We played with fear for 45 minutes in the first half
Only fought back because we had no choice or we were out of the tie
Played exactly into their hands and to their strength's
Why are we not fighting from the first minute and imposing ourselves on them?
Why wait until we are 2-0 down to do something?
That is fear
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We played with fear for 45 minutes in the first half
Only fought back because we had no choice or we were out of the tie
Played exactly into their hands and to their strength's
Why are we not fighting from the first minute and imposing ourselves on them?
Why wait until we are 2-0 down to do something?
That sounds similar to our 2nd leg vs Barca last season, we were 3:0 up, came and played the perfect 0:0 exactly the way you're describing. But it wasn't fear, if anything it was cocky confidence in our ability to completely stop the most feared attacking force in world football and anti-football our way into the semi's
If Barcelona were a better team they would have put up much more of a fight
They were shit and we took full advantage of that, we didn't play too bad but if they weren't in such a bad phase last season might not have ended the same way
When we came up against the first top team in the final we all know the result
Sometimes parking the bus works but most of the time against the better teams they will punish us if we allow them easy possession in our own half
At least if we are going to park the bus there should be a counter attack, we simply do not counter attack often enough or good enough
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I've seen the writing on the wall for 3 years and nothing's changed
Same mentality of showing too much respect to the opposition
All the messages of "together" "believe" are messages of a small team
We are Juve not some fucking mid table team punching above their weight
They were shit and we took full advantage of that, we didn't play too bad but if they weren't in such a bad phase last season might not have ended the same way
When we came up against the first top team in the final we all know the result
Sometimes parking the bus works but most of the time against the better teams they will punish us if we allow them easy possession in our own half
At least if we are going to park the bus there should be a counter attack, we simply do not counter attack often enough or good enough
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I've seen the writing on the wall for 3 years and nothing's changed
Same mentality of showing too much respect to the opposition
All the messages of "together" "believe" are messages of a small team
We are Juve not some fucking mid table team punching above their weight
The 4-2-3-1 has been pretty terrible for us this season, which sucks, given the way we reinforced over the summer. We basically spent 70% of this match playing a 4-4-2, defending in two banks of four. Mandzukic and Bernardeschi were way too low on the wings, Costa and Higgy doing what they can, but it's not enough pressure up top. Then we've got Pjanic shielding the defense, and an immobile Khedira late to every ball. Just way too deep, very little pressure on Tottenham's midfield, limited outlets/terrible spacing when we do get the ball, and we get pinned. We were dying for Matuidi, and the energy he brings to the midfield -- and the tactical nous of a healthy Marchisio (who isn't up to par right now, obviously, and probably can't be counted on for the return match at this point).
Beppe's first priority has gotta be injecting some dynamism into the midfield this summer. Basically no shot for SMS given price and the relationship with Lazio, but should be calling Sampdoria yesterday for Torreira. Hopefully they're not still pissed after the Schick shit.
This team isn't playing catennacio, Dantes, that's a system that involves a libero/sweeper, a free defensive role. Generally used to double mark or clean up loose balls behind a back 3 or 4. We just don't have enough dynamism in midfield, there is absolutely no steel and very little energy when it's a 2 of Pjanic and Khedira in that 4-2-3-1. Painful to watch us get run over like that, especially considering how recently we had what was easily a top 3 midfield in world football.
We've gotta go 4-3-3 for the return leg.
Beppe's first priority has gotta be injecting some dynamism into the midfield this summer. Basically no shot for SMS given price and the relationship with Lazio, but should be calling Sampdoria yesterday for Torreira. Hopefully they're not still pissed after the Schick shit.
This team isn't playing catennacio, Dantes, that's a system that involves a libero/sweeper, a free defensive role. Generally used to double mark or clean up loose balls behind a back 3 or 4. We just don't have enough dynamism in midfield, there is absolutely no steel and very little energy when it's a 2 of Pjanic and Khedira in that 4-2-3-1. Painful to watch us get run over like that, especially considering how recently we had what was easily a top 3 midfield in world football.
We've gotta go 4-3-3 for the return leg.
I'm just saying parking the bus isn't necessarily playing with fear, sometimes we're just confidently executing a game plan like against Napoli this season.
If you want to receive more joy from watching Juventus, you might want to start by acknowledging how many good teams we've actually beaten over the years with Allegri at the helm. Because it sure is impressive and that number far exceeds the number of losses.
If you want to receive more joy from watching Juventus, you might want to start by acknowledging how many good teams we've actually beaten over the years with Allegri at the helm. Because it sure is impressive and that number far exceeds the number of losses.
