Not a bad performance overall.
No space whatsoever in the midfield with both teams playing 3-5-1-1, so playing through the middle was pretty well impossible for both sides.
Juve engineered a couple of good situations with Isla early on and I thought they could have tried harder to get down that side throughout the game. Nothing doing on the left, though, which made it even harder for Juve to find space.
Conte clearly told Juve to play longer in the second half to try and stretch things out and that worked well - forcing Lazio deeper and opening a little space between their defence and midfield.
Once Juve got the goal and Lazio brought Candreva on for Ledesma, the game really opened up and Juve played a burst of very good football that should have resulted in another couple of goals and the tie being over before the second game.
As much as I dislike goals being conceded from set-pieces, that was a tough one to avoid: Vucinic has to go for the ball, even though he's not sure he can reach it, and it's very difficult for De Ceglie to stay in control of the situation against Mauri after the ball is flicked on like that. Ideally, Matri, who was just behind Vucinic, would have given him a shout to leave the corner for him to clear, but that's a tough call to make.
It's not like Juve concede a lot of goals from set-pieces, so that not really an issue - unlike the continuing failure to take the chances to make a game safe.
- - - Updated - - -
For those of you complaining that Vucinic should have got a penalty:
Yeah, it probably was a penalty, but Juve's goal probably should have been disallowed for Peluso climbing on Lulic.
No space whatsoever in the midfield with both teams playing 3-5-1-1, so playing through the middle was pretty well impossible for both sides.
Juve engineered a couple of good situations with Isla early on and I thought they could have tried harder to get down that side throughout the game. Nothing doing on the left, though, which made it even harder for Juve to find space.
Conte clearly told Juve to play longer in the second half to try and stretch things out and that worked well - forcing Lazio deeper and opening a little space between their defence and midfield.
Once Juve got the goal and Lazio brought Candreva on for Ledesma, the game really opened up and Juve played a burst of very good football that should have resulted in another couple of goals and the tie being over before the second game.
As much as I dislike goals being conceded from set-pieces, that was a tough one to avoid: Vucinic has to go for the ball, even though he's not sure he can reach it, and it's very difficult for De Ceglie to stay in control of the situation against Mauri after the ball is flicked on like that. Ideally, Matri, who was just behind Vucinic, would have given him a shout to leave the corner for him to clear, but that's a tough call to make.
It's not like Juve concede a lot of goals from set-pieces, so that not really an issue - unlike the continuing failure to take the chances to make a game safe.
- - - Updated - - -
For those of you complaining that Vucinic should have got a penalty:
Yeah, it probably was a penalty, but Juve's goal probably should have been disallowed for Peluso climbing on Lulic.
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