[CL] Juventus 3-2 Porto [March 9th, 2021] (9 Viewers)

[Snobist]

I disagree. You dont have to destroy teams in the league but to win the CL you need to be elite in at least one unit on the field. We arent elite at anything right now and thats an issue

It's not coincidence that Atalanta has been performing better in CHL than us. They don't mind scoring 5-6 goals against smaller teams. While we scrape wins.

 

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[edgardavids2608]

It's not coincidence that Atalanta has been performing better in CHL than us. They don't mind scoring 5-6 goals against smaller teams. While we scrape wins.

Like I said have an elite unit. We dont need to beat a bad team 4-0 to prove we are dominant but we do need to return to the day where playing Spezia meant not worrying about points while resting players

 

[Juve92]

Juve DNA

 

[PhRoZeN]

And why couldnt we just put a player behind the wall, we again underestimated them, frustating to see how easily that could have been avoided. The Demiral foul, well shit happens in the box and you can argue thats an individual mistake or whatever but something we have time to do, i.e prepare to defend a freekick, we just couldnt.

I remember in the days when we met Celtic out of all the teams and we had dozens of bodies in the box doing everything from allowing to score from a corner. Its the desire that we lacked, they have no passion, but i really hope they do now, because someone needs to have a hard word with them, even if its Neddy. Maybe he can take that UEFA respect board with him to show them how pissed off he is with them.

 

[Snobist]

We now risk top 4.

 

[Bjerknes]

We had a good result in Amsterdam, but then injuries happened and an overall stronger/hungrier side beat us at home. Looking back at that defeat it's definitely not nearly as bad as the last two.

After thinking about this a bit, I'm not so sure anymore. The way in which we lost that second leg against Ajax is potentially worse for me. Coming back home with a 2-1 or whatever advantage in the second leg and losing it is simply unforgiveable and pathetic. The last two were obviously both disastrous, but we never looked like we were going to progress apart from 10 minutes against Porto after starting so poorly in the first legs. I knew the Porto matches were over with as soon as Bentancur gave the ball away, so for me it was rather predictable and thus less infuriating.

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What makes me mad is the complacency. Once we went 2-1 up it was like job done. We good now. Every single year. This do just bare minimum attitude is insulting.

But that is the attitude regardless of who is manager. It's been that way forever now, which makes it seem like a philosophy issue with Juventus.

 

[Alen]

After thinking about this a bit, I'm not so sure anymore. The way in which we lost that second leg against Ajax is potentially worse for me. Coming back home with a 2-1 or whatever advantage in the second leg and losing it is simply unforgiveable and pathetic. The last two were obviously both disastrous, but we never looked like we were going to progress apart from 10 minutes against Porto after starting so poorly in the first legs. I knew the Porto matches were over with as soon as Bentancur gave the ball away, so for me it was rather predictable and thus less infuriating.

I agree. Ajax gave us a lesson in football. 1:1 in Amsterdam, we took the lead in Turin, and then their kids looked like men, and our men looked like small kids. In the previous 4 seasons we made it to 2 CL finals and in the other two we were eliminated pretty much in the last minutes of ET against Bayern and with that last second Ronaldo penalty in Madrid. But Ajax was a slap in the face. It was finally shown that this is not the strong team everyone thought it was. The last two seasons were pathetic, but not that much unexpected.

 

[Alex-444]

 

[PhRoZeN]

Somebody bring out the memes to cheer me up because I'm being ripped at work, I have no response whatsoever. I'm a total pussy today.

Pull in a sickie. it's a lot easier when working from home.

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I agree. Ajax gave us a lesson in football. 1:1 in Amsterdam, we took the lead in Turin, and then their kids looked like men, and our men looked like small kids. In the previous 4 seasons we made it to 2 CL finals and in the other two we were eliminated pretty much in the last minutes of ET against Bayern and with that last second Ronaldo penalty in Madrid. But Ajax was a slap in the face. It was finally shown that this is not the strong team everyone thought it was. The last two seasons were pathetic, but not that much unexpected.

I thought Ajax team played slick football, and they were unlucky to get knocked out by spuds. They pretty much outclassed every team they met, once in a generation team and i think we were in a way unlucky to meet them, and probably underestimated them. Lyon for me was a disgrace, no excuses there and yes Porto as well.

 

[Bjerknes]

I agree. Ajax gave us a lesson in football. 1:1 in Amsterdam, we took the lead in Turin, and then their kids looked like men, and our men looked like small kids. In the previous 4 seasons we made it to 2 CL finals and in the other two we were eliminated pretty much in the last minutes of ET against Bayern and with that last second Ronaldo penalty in Madrid. But Ajax was a slap in the face. It was finally shown that this is not the strong team everyone thought it was. The last two seasons were pathetic, but not that much unexpected.

And the sad thing is I don't even remember Ajax being that good against us in the second leg, compared to their matches up until that point.

 

[Elvin]

Ah Ajax, another tie where we gifted goals. Our goals have to be scored painfully, or opponents will get a gift or two, guaranteed.

 

[Badass J Elkann]

I swear that's Ian wright with a wig on

 

[Mokku]

Pull in a sickie. it's a lot easier when working from home.

I'm in the office already. I've been colonelcy irrigated by the Portuguese, vaccinated by the English and winked at by the Inter fan but I'm not sure if that one was football related. Its humiliating.

 

[swag]

Well, let's rip off the Band-Aid. There is no pretense this club was going anywhere with THAT midfield.

And CR7 really was a no show on the biggest stage for the first time in a long time that I can remember. That wall was the period on the exclamation point. Perhaps its time he wants to move on, and we should cash in and rebuild.

 

[.zero]

Ronaldo or Dybala? Juventus may face big decision after Champions League exit

Cristiano Ronaldo has made the admission in the past that if it were down to him, he would only play Champions League football. It has felt, at times, like the 36-year-old has tailored his own personal fitness regimen to peak when the knockout stages begin, so it wasn’t entirely surprising to see Andrea Pirlo leave the Portuguese out of the starting XI for a game against Lazio last weekend that was considered pivotal to Juventus’ increasingly slender chances of winning the Serie A title for the 10th season in a row.

Porto were around the corner and, after losing the first leg 2-1 three weeks ago, it was paramount that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner was fresh. Ronaldo has featured in 16 games since the turn of the year, starting and finishing 14 of them. Rather than take things easier as he nears his 40s, the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star’s minutes have upped every year in Italy, just as winning the title has got harder and harder. His load management did not sharpen his instincts on Tuesday night. Not for the first time this season, the game passed Ronaldo by, even with Juventus playing more than an hour with a man advantage after Mehdi Taremi picked up a second yellow card for foolishly kicking the ball away.

At the Estadio Dragao, Ronaldo was limited to a single shot from outside the area and should perhaps have had a penalty towards the end. At the Allianz Stadium, he kept sprinting in behind and then stopping. The ball over the top wasn’t coming because Leonardo Bonucci either thought twice about it or Arthur, the €72 million summer signing, referred to as “the rugby player” by Fabio Capello on Sky Italia, decided to pass the ball sideways again.

Juventus rely on their two playmakers in defence and midfield, but neither Bonucci nor Arthur were fully fit. Even then, Bonucci still had a hand in the equaliser from the outstanding Federico Chiesa and Arthur threaded Alvaro Morata through for yet another offside “goal”. Other than that though, Juventus’ chances came from one Juan Cuadrado cross after another. In total, there were 32 from the Colombian and Morata should have buried the first one he curled in. For someone whose enduring athleticism is often encapsulated in his NBA leaps and prowess in the air, Ronaldo was not on the end of them and for the first time in 15 seasons, the competition’s all-time leading scorer failed to find the back of the net in the knockout stages.

Chiesa was excellent on the night but could not push Juventus over the line (Photo: Getty Images)
“Usually, when you have Ronaldo on the pitch you start 1-0 up,” Pirlo said after the game. Lately, it’s been more a case of 1-0 down. “There are times when even he can’t score,” Juventus’ rookie coach continued. “It happens even to champions like him. He did his bit and did everything he could.” Juventus once again lost the first leg on the road, went behind in the first 20 minutes for the sixth time this season, let in another away goal from the penalty spot and hoped Ronaldo would repeat the comeback hat-trick he scored against Atletico Madrid in his first season on the Old Lady’s arm. After that game in 2019, he memorably said: “This is why you signed me.”

But Tuesday’s performance isn’t what Juventus had in mind when they broke the Serie A transfer record to sign him. Chiesa was the one who came closest to emulating the Ronaldo we marvelled at in that Atletico game. His away goal in Porto kept the tie alive and it was the Italy international’s brace that forced the second leg to extra time. He hit the woodwork — as Cuadrado did too — rounding the excellent Agustin Marchesin in the Porto goal only for the warrior-like figure of Pepe, in arguably the best display by any centre-back in European football this season, to apply the pressure and ensure Chiesa struck the post rather than celebrate a career-defining hat-trick.

Chiesa almost stole the headlines but, after he cramped up and got lucky not to see a second yellow from referee Bjorn Kuipers, Porto wrested them back. Sergio Oliveira’s daisy-cutting free kick will haunt Juventus fans for a long time. Pirlo himself would have relished the chance to score in front of a wall that served as no protection to Wojciech Szczesny, whose own imperfect positioning derived from him desperately barking orders to reorganise his defence. Ronaldo jumped, turning his back before Oliveira even connected with the ball and the No 7’s famous hang-time enabled both him and Rabiot to watch the shot go underneath them and sneak in at Szczesny’s post. Capello called it “unforgivable” and while Rabiot instantly redeemed himself with a headed goal, Ronaldo was spent and the game was gone.

So here we are again. Another early exit. More pause for reflection. Juventus have regressed every year since Massimiliano Allegri’s dismissal. The team’s winning margin in Serie A has diminished and now they’re 10 points behind Inter Milan. Favourable draws in the Champions League — Lyon last year, Porto this — have not been capitalised on. Instead, Juventus have made it to March and fallen at the first hurdle. What does Andrea Agnelli do now? Winning the scudetto was not enough to save Allegri or his successor Maurizio Sarri, so speculation around Pirlo’s position is to be expected — if not now, then at the end of the season.

“I spoke to the president straight after the game,” Pirlo said. “We spoke about the future… he didn’t (need to) reassure me because I was already at ease. He told me the project has only just begun.” How much should be read into that remains to be seen. After all, Agnelli initially vowed to continue with Allegri after Ajax beat Juventus in the quarter-finals two seasons ago. Ultimately, the trend since 2019 is easy enough to follow — the coaches change, but the Champions League results remain more or less the same, which would indicate that for all Pirlo’s relative inexperience as a coach, the problems are not exclusively in the dugout.

Scrutiny falls on the executive team. Juventus’ chief football officer Fabio Paratici undoubtedly had a good summer window. It was a return to form, as Chiesa, Morata and Weston McKennie have all been successes. The side still needs work — particularly in midfield — to play a modern mix of possession and pressing, but Juventus are closer in personnel to that style than they were under Sarri and boast a core of talented youngsters, such as Matthijs de Ligt and Dejan Kulusevski, to build around. Promoted for the instrumental role he played in signing Ronaldo, Paratici won’t be judged on that signing’s success or failure alone. He has rebuilt this team three or four times in the last 11 years but this is a delicate moment and his contract is up in the summer.

The move for Ronaldo has added millions to Juventus’ social media following and guaranteed the kind of exposure that has enabled the club to upgrade commercial and sponsorship deals. But the cost of the operation, the pressures it has wrought on squad management and the recent impact of COVID-19 perhaps mean the biggest decision awaiting Agnelli is the choice over Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala, the reigning Serie A MVP, who was missing in August for the second leg against Lyon and has hardly played this season amid all kinds of injury problems. Both are nearing the final 12 months of their contracts and whoever stays will be the face of the team (unless Chiesa makes it his own).

The decision comes down to what Juventus want to be. Dybala is at a stage in his contract when the club could turn a big profit on him, but the market is depressed by the pandemic and, besides, he’s almost a decade younger than Ronaldo and happy in Turin. Isn’t it time to build around him? As great as the Portuguese has been in Serie A, Juventus were more successful before his arrival and the break the club made with Allegri — appointing collective-centric, pressing coaches in his place — begs the question: can that brand of football ever really take off when the supreme individual is on the team?

 

[pavelnel]

You should get rid of that cringe ass shit logo, it all went downhill after you went that way - get the other one back, it looked nice.

On a serious note: who cares about having a player like Ronaldo when the actual team regressed so massively? No, he's not the only one to blame, far from. But this is my exact point a week or so ago about why you should always strive to get the best possible team and not the best individuals, when you have one of the best teams then you can think about getting individuals that stands out.

Juve really shot themselves in the foot with this Ronaldo deal. Wtf cares about marketing shit when you go out in the R16 two years in a row? The best marketing is always to win games, fuck the other cringe shit.

You had one of the best teams in the world from 2014-2017, it was a joy to watch that teamwork and well functioning midfield back then, today you play static and without much creativity.

Pirlo and Sarri is not good enough but you can hardly blame them for saying yes to the job, those who should take the biggest blame is your management and that parasite named director you have.

Another thing is you need to change your approach and how you attack the games. Looking from the outside you play an outdated version of football, sorry to say. But the old Italian way of playing football just don't cut it anymore.

Today it's pretty much all out attack, like it or not but it's the way forward. And this "conserve energy" thing is the worst thing you can do as well, you need to fire on all cylinders for your players to stay in top form at the right moments.

Yes it might tire them but if you manage it well then you'll be rewarded big time in the end.

I have been saying this for years. Good that a neutral fan could say the same things, which should be blatantly obvious by now. If we want to win in Europe we have to change.

 

[Bjerknes]

Trying to build the side around Dybala, a player who's either struggling with form or injury all the time, seems to be risky to me. I'd rather just sell him to be honest. I like the player but it's just getting old.

 

[Gep]

our wall last night

 

[sgjuveboy]

And why couldnt we just put a player behind the wall, we again underestimated them, frustating to see how easily that could have been avoided. The Demiral foul, well shit happens in the box and you can argue thats an individual mistake or whatever but something we have time to do, i.e prepare to defend a freekick, we just couldnt.

I remember in the days when we met Celtic out of all the teams and we had dozens of bodies in the box doing everything from allowing to score from a corner. Its the desire that we lacked, they have no passion, but i really hope they do now, because someone needs to have a hard word with them, even if its Neddy. Maybe he can take that UEFA respect board with him to show them how pissed off he is with them.

Oh yea u are right...those were the days we actually showed grinta! I remembered how fired up our players were. Even our midfield calm maestro Pirlo was raging on that day against those Celtic delinquent midfield!

Unfortunately, ever since Khedira joined Juve, we have lost all Grinta. And with the addition of Sissoko, we lost all footballing brains. Those two have really left a toxic air around us even after their departure.

 

[RoiLezard]

bruh have you seen our team. how you expect them to win anything when we are playing ugly ass ogres like kulu, demiral, and woj to put in good performances.

time to install hamsums

I hear ya, the hamsumness level is definitely fading away.


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