A functioning system, where the coach has more of an offensive plan or idea than "just run at goal“….
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Federico Chiesa (37 Viewers)
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It’s been a periodaccio. That’s how Federico Chiesa defined the last month at Juventus. A truly awful spell. Tuesday’s win against Lazio in the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-finals was their first in more than a month and it didn’t alter the mood.
Juventus were whistled by some of the supporters at half-time. To the dismay of head coach Max Allegri, one of his veterans, Alex Sandro, came under fire. The ultras, in defence of the team, raised their megaphones and told the rest of the stadium they were a “shit crowd” for having a go. Chiesa, though, offered his understanding. “At Juventus,” he said, “you always have to be at 110 per cent. Rightly, the pressure is very high. It’s an historic club with 12million fans in Italy, so it’s right that there’s pressure. The criticism is fair.”
His opening goal came as a relief. Andrea Cambiaso, his Italy team-mate, split the Lazio defence with a through ball from deep and all of a sudden, Chiesa was through one-on-one. It felt like the best chance he’d had in months and he took it. His strike partner Dusan Vlahovic, absent from the weekend’s defeat to the same opponent in Serie A, then doubled Juventus’ lead and all was as it’s meant to be in Turin.
Both had scored in the opening-day win in Udine back in August, a night that promised a new dawn. Afterwards, you may recall, Chiesa said: “We were intense. We pressed high. We have got to keep playing this way and not always sit back. This is modern football.” Much was made of Cambiaso’s role as an inverted wing-back and the influence of Allegri’s new assistant Francesco Manganelli. “Chiesa has to score 14 to 16 goals,” Allegri said. “It’s reductive to make him play out wide.”
Even before Juventus started spiralling, Chiesa found himself in a slump. He was whistled against Frosinone and fleetingly lost his place to Kenan Yildiz, who, in addition to being rather hastily proclaimed the next big thing in Serie A, seemed to dovetail better with Vlahovic.
Through it all, Chiesa’s underwhelming play never diminished his reputation. The perception of him as Italy’s most talented player has proven surprisingly resilient even though, at 26, he has never got into double figures in Serie A. For context, his contemporary at Bologna, Riccardo Orsolini, has now done it in back-to-back years. Domenico Berardi managed it twice before turning 21 at Sassuolo and has more than 100 top-flight goals, often single-handedly keeping them up.
Neither of those guys have a surname like Chiesa’s and it’s undeniable he seized the day at Berardi’s expense at Euro 2020 when he took his place and scored pivotal goals in extra-time against Austria and in the semi-final against Spain. But Chiesa did not win player of the tournament. That was Gigio Donnarumma who, on form right now, is probably still Italy’s most gifted player. People also tend to forget the real game-changer up until his torn Achilles against Belgium was Leonardo Spinazzola, who hasn’t been able to recapture the same form since.
Chiesa, too, has had a bad injury in the meantime. Six months after winning the Euros, he blew out his left knee. He missed almost a year of football, a mitigating factor when judging Allegri’s second spell at the club just as Paul Pogba’s own ACL agony and failed doping control should be.
Chiesa’s return was a baptism of fire. Having been eased back in with a series of cameos, his first start came in the 5-1 defeat to Napoli in January 2023. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the best left winger in the league along with Rafael Leao, exposed Chiesa who, tactically anarchic at the best of times, was, for many, playing out of position as a right wing-back; the position he established himself in as a kid at Fiorentina, not to mention the flank he excelled on at the Euros with Italy.
The points deductions, suspended then reinstated, disoriented Juventus for the rest of that season as Chiesa still felt his way back into full fitness. More was expected this time around though and Chiesa, speedster that he is, came out of the blocks flying. He scored four goals in Juventus’ first five games and looked like having his best campaign ever. It has not turned out that way.
Juventus’ style — and style is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence — is almost always cited as exculpatory evidence. Opta data has Juventus in the bottom half of the table in field tilt, a metric that tells us about a team’s territorial dominance by measuring the share of possession a team has in a game, considering only touches or passes in the attacking third. In other words, Juventus play far away from their opponent’s goal. On the one hand, you’d think that would play to Chiesa’s strengths as a counter-attacking force. It doesn’t. Juventus are eighth in penalty-area entries in Serie A. Vlahovic has still managed to score 16 goals in all competitions and on scraps too. He has out-performed his xG, converting difficult chances, and his tally would look even better were it not for penalty misses against Empoli and Monza.
Chiesa, by contrast, has made a tough gig look even harder (as has a goalless Moise Kean). Allegri claimed Chiesa’s goal on Tuesday came down to some straightforward advice at half-time. “I told him to run at goal. That’s the truth,” Allegri revealed on Mediaset. “When I say football’s a simple game… All I said was run at goal and we’ll find a solution.”
The banal can be revelatory when Chiesa’s tendency has been to drift out wide and box himself in against two or three defenders. It’s one explanation for his dribbling stats. He has completed 1.46 dribbles per 90 with a success rate of 37.5 per cent this season. For context, Matias Soule, a player on loan from Juventus at Frosinone, leads the league with 3.10 per 90.
Another explanation to balance out the criticism of Juventus’ tactics is the recognition that Chiesa has never had the tie-you-in-knots skill of Kvara and Leao. He has nearly always relied on his pace, pushing the ball past an opponent and beating them in a footrace. This is hard to repeat when you’re playing box-to-box rather than high all the time. But it’s also predictable. All of this would matter less if Chiesa laid on as many assists as Milan’s Leao (12 in all competitions) and Napoli star Kvara (six). But he doesn’t.
Comparing him with those two in particular is instructive. Leao, for instance, is constantly dogged by questions like, “When is he going to kick on?” And that’s in a season with 23 goal involvements. Kvara, meanwhile, has been diagnosed with second-season syndrome. He hasn’t lived up to last season. Then you look at the stats and in a mid-table Napoli team, the Georgian has still contributed 16 goals and assists. It’s a dilemma for Juventus, who have to judge whether Chiesa is really being held back by Allegri or whether this is approximately his level. Chiesa’s contract is up at the end of next season and a decision needs to be taken on his future.
It’s a conundrum for Italy coach Luciano Spalletti ahead of the Euros, too. He has called Chiesa “our (Jannik) Sinner”, the Australian Open-winning tennis player who is indisputably the biggest star in Italian sport at the moment. But Spalletti isn’t blind. “I’ve observed his issues,” he said. “But in the national team, the roles of some players change and so do their performances.” Chiesa’s near qualification-clinching performance against North Macedonia in November was evidence of that but Italy can’t cling to it.
For all people assume Chiesa is the first name on the team sheet, Donnarumma occupies that berth not only in rank — as No 1 and skipper — but on form too. He is followed by Nicolo Barella, the only Italian who made the list for the 2023 Ballon d’Or. As Juventus prepare to play Chiesa’s former club Fiorentina this weekend, he still needs to show that the €50million his club committed to pay for him nearly four years ago was actually worth it.
From my phone hence formatting.
Juventus were whistled by some of the supporters at half-time. To the dismay of head coach Max Allegri, one of his veterans, Alex Sandro, came under fire. The ultras, in defence of the team, raised their megaphones and told the rest of the stadium they were a “shit crowd” for having a go. Chiesa, though, offered his understanding. “At Juventus,” he said, “you always have to be at 110 per cent. Rightly, the pressure is very high. It’s an historic club with 12million fans in Italy, so it’s right that there’s pressure. The criticism is fair.”
His opening goal came as a relief. Andrea Cambiaso, his Italy team-mate, split the Lazio defence with a through ball from deep and all of a sudden, Chiesa was through one-on-one. It felt like the best chance he’d had in months and he took it. His strike partner Dusan Vlahovic, absent from the weekend’s defeat to the same opponent in Serie A, then doubled Juventus’ lead and all was as it’s meant to be in Turin.
Both had scored in the opening-day win in Udine back in August, a night that promised a new dawn. Afterwards, you may recall, Chiesa said: “We were intense. We pressed high. We have got to keep playing this way and not always sit back. This is modern football.” Much was made of Cambiaso’s role as an inverted wing-back and the influence of Allegri’s new assistant Francesco Manganelli. “Chiesa has to score 14 to 16 goals,” Allegri said. “It’s reductive to make him play out wide.”
Even before Juventus started spiralling, Chiesa found himself in a slump. He was whistled against Frosinone and fleetingly lost his place to Kenan Yildiz, who, in addition to being rather hastily proclaimed the next big thing in Serie A, seemed to dovetail better with Vlahovic.
Through it all, Chiesa’s underwhelming play never diminished his reputation. The perception of him as Italy’s most talented player has proven surprisingly resilient even though, at 26, he has never got into double figures in Serie A. For context, his contemporary at Bologna, Riccardo Orsolini, has now done it in back-to-back years. Domenico Berardi managed it twice before turning 21 at Sassuolo and has more than 100 top-flight goals, often single-handedly keeping them up.
Neither of those guys have a surname like Chiesa’s and it’s undeniable he seized the day at Berardi’s expense at Euro 2020 when he took his place and scored pivotal goals in extra-time against Austria and in the semi-final against Spain. But Chiesa did not win player of the tournament. That was Gigio Donnarumma who, on form right now, is probably still Italy’s most gifted player. People also tend to forget the real game-changer up until his torn Achilles against Belgium was Leonardo Spinazzola, who hasn’t been able to recapture the same form since.
Chiesa, too, has had a bad injury in the meantime. Six months after winning the Euros, he blew out his left knee. He missed almost a year of football, a mitigating factor when judging Allegri’s second spell at the club just as Paul Pogba’s own ACL agony and failed doping control should be.
Chiesa’s return was a baptism of fire. Having been eased back in with a series of cameos, his first start came in the 5-1 defeat to Napoli in January 2023. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the best left winger in the league along with Rafael Leao, exposed Chiesa who, tactically anarchic at the best of times, was, for many, playing out of position as a right wing-back; the position he established himself in as a kid at Fiorentina, not to mention the flank he excelled on at the Euros with Italy.
The points deductions, suspended then reinstated, disoriented Juventus for the rest of that season as Chiesa still felt his way back into full fitness. More was expected this time around though and Chiesa, speedster that he is, came out of the blocks flying. He scored four goals in Juventus’ first five games and looked like having his best campaign ever. It has not turned out that way.
Juventus’ style — and style is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence — is almost always cited as exculpatory evidence. Opta data has Juventus in the bottom half of the table in field tilt, a metric that tells us about a team’s territorial dominance by measuring the share of possession a team has in a game, considering only touches or passes in the attacking third. In other words, Juventus play far away from their opponent’s goal. On the one hand, you’d think that would play to Chiesa’s strengths as a counter-attacking force. It doesn’t. Juventus are eighth in penalty-area entries in Serie A. Vlahovic has still managed to score 16 goals in all competitions and on scraps too. He has out-performed his xG, converting difficult chances, and his tally would look even better were it not for penalty misses against Empoli and Monza.
Chiesa, by contrast, has made a tough gig look even harder (as has a goalless Moise Kean). Allegri claimed Chiesa’s goal on Tuesday came down to some straightforward advice at half-time. “I told him to run at goal. That’s the truth,” Allegri revealed on Mediaset. “When I say football’s a simple game… All I said was run at goal and we’ll find a solution.”
The banal can be revelatory when Chiesa’s tendency has been to drift out wide and box himself in against two or three defenders. It’s one explanation for his dribbling stats. He has completed 1.46 dribbles per 90 with a success rate of 37.5 per cent this season. For context, Matias Soule, a player on loan from Juventus at Frosinone, leads the league with 3.10 per 90.
Another explanation to balance out the criticism of Juventus’ tactics is the recognition that Chiesa has never had the tie-you-in-knots skill of Kvara and Leao. He has nearly always relied on his pace, pushing the ball past an opponent and beating them in a footrace. This is hard to repeat when you’re playing box-to-box rather than high all the time. But it’s also predictable. All of this would matter less if Chiesa laid on as many assists as Milan’s Leao (12 in all competitions) and Napoli star Kvara (six). But he doesn’t.
Comparing him with those two in particular is instructive. Leao, for instance, is constantly dogged by questions like, “When is he going to kick on?” And that’s in a season with 23 goal involvements. Kvara, meanwhile, has been diagnosed with second-season syndrome. He hasn’t lived up to last season. Then you look at the stats and in a mid-table Napoli team, the Georgian has still contributed 16 goals and assists. It’s a dilemma for Juventus, who have to judge whether Chiesa is really being held back by Allegri or whether this is approximately his level. Chiesa’s contract is up at the end of next season and a decision needs to be taken on his future.
It’s a conundrum for Italy coach Luciano Spalletti ahead of the Euros, too. He has called Chiesa “our (Jannik) Sinner”, the Australian Open-winning tennis player who is indisputably the biggest star in Italian sport at the moment. But Spalletti isn’t blind. “I’ve observed his issues,” he said. “But in the national team, the roles of some players change and so do their performances.” Chiesa’s near qualification-clinching performance against North Macedonia in November was evidence of that but Italy can’t cling to it.
For all people assume Chiesa is the first name on the team sheet, Donnarumma occupies that berth not only in rank — as No 1 and skipper — but on form too. He is followed by Nicolo Barella, the only Italian who made the list for the 2023 Ballon d’Or. As Juventus prepare to play Chiesa’s former club Fiorentina this weekend, he still needs to show that the €50million his club committed to pay for him nearly four years ago was actually worth it.
From my phone hence formatting.
I heard Fabiana Della Valle saying that it might be an extension of just a year. Chiesa is fed up by the way we’ve been playing, doesn’t necessarily want to leave but things have to change according to her. So a year to evaluate, might extend after that year again if things work out according to her.
We will loose players, potential sponsors, potential players and fans. I can't possibly convince my kids to watch the games with me. Why on earth would they want to watch us? Why would any other kids do it? My wife's sister's kid is a "fan" because he has the jersey but has never seen us play. I am trying to keep him as a fan by not showing us play. Imagine then being a winger who likes to press high. dribble and attack, to play under Allegri. A little of his soul is dying every week.
Federico Chiesa is tired and frustrated of playing as a second striker, as he sees himself more as a wide right or left winger. A change of coach could be enticed for him to stay. His renewal would remain a short term, annual renewal to 2026, at the same wage of €5m and would be completed before the start of the Euros. A solution that satisfies both parties.
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[@NicoSchira)
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