March’s Monthly Juventus Thoughts: Misery

“Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.”

After Juventus beat Frosinone 3-2 in a dramatic, Rugani-inspired, last-minute victory, I really thought the team had pulled itself out of its horrible run of form and that it was going to be the beginning of a revival.

But just when I thought we were out, the month of March pulled us back into terrible results.

As I mentioned recently on the podcast, I’ve run out of explanations to rationalize/explain Juventus’ shocking loss of form in the last two months. It’s the same group of players playing the same frequency of games with the same coach as they did when they had that stunning 19-game unbeaten streak.

And yet, somehow, everything has gone completely wrong. And it could get worse if we somehow manage to drop out of the top four, a scenario that is looking increasingly likely as time goes on.

Champions League in doubt?

Juventus traveled to Naples to face defending champions Napoli, a team having an even worse season than we currently are (yes, that’s possible). It was a game characterized by a shocking number of wasted chances by the Bianconeri as Dusan Vlahovic could have had a hattrick in the first half if he had converted his opportunities. Despite that, Juventus played a surprisingly good game, but what’s the point of playing well if you don’t finish your chances?

Napoli, on the contrary, were more clinical and took the lead just before half time through Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s stinging volley that took the slightest deflection on its way past Wojciech Szczesny into goal. The Bianconeri continued to create a decent number of chances but were incredibly and frustratingly wasteful.

Ironically, Juventus equalized from its most difficult opportunity. Federico Chiesa scored his first goal since January from a thunderous low shot that flew into the bottom corner from a difficult angle. Chiesa didn’t have much space for the shot, but he sure made the most of it.

Unfortunately, the Bianconeri threw away the game just minutes before the end. The 18-year-old Belgian midfielder Joseph Nonge, a 76th-minute substitute for Fabio Miretti, made a clumsy challenge in the box on Victor Osihmen’s ankle and a VAR review ruled that it was a penalty. Osihmen picked himself up and took a weak penalty that Szczesny easily saved, but the Polish goalkeeper was let down by not one, not two, but FOUR Juventus teammates who casually watched him save the penalty.

Napoli’s players, on the contrary, immediately pounced on the rebound. Giacomo Raspadori was the first to it and scored the game’s winning goal from the rebound, while poor Nonge returned to the bench in the 90th minute as Max Allegri substituted the substitute for defender Danilo. Final score: 2-1.

From one crunch game to the next: Juventus welcomed Atalanta to the Allianz stadium and hoped to return to winning ways against another team chasing top four. Atalanta opened the scoring in the 35th minute despite not creating much in the first half. My compatriot Teun Koopmeiners continued his impressive season for Atalanta by scoring from a clever free kick routine. Juventus struggled to respond to this setback until coming to life after the hour mark.

Andrea Cambiaso equalized after a lovely passing move with Chiesa and assist-giver McKennie on the left wing. Arek Milik completed the comeback just four minutes later as he scored a great volley after McKennie chested down Samuel Iling-Junior’s fabulous cross.

Koopmeiners completed an eventful ten minute period in the game when he scored his and his team’s second goal just five minutes after Milik’s goal. The Dutchman ghosted in behind Danilo and drilled Berat Djimsiti’s clever pass through Szczesny’s legs. A tipsy-turvy game ends 2-2, a result that helps neither team.

In the last game before the international break, Juventus had a lunch-time kickoff game against Genoa. It was another miserably wasteful performance as Allegri’s men had a remarkable 17 shots but only two on target. The Bianconeri struggled massively in front of goal and it’s no surprise that the game ended goalless. To make matters even worse, Vlahovic was sent off in the 93rd minute for insulting the referee, meaning that he misses the tough away game against another struggling and underperforming team in the league: Lazio.

Photo by Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images

We closed the month with a 1-0 loss away at Lazio, a game that was arguably the most miserable and depressing performance of the month. This was a game that truly displayed the depths of the crisis that Juventus is currently in. While the defending was decent at best, the team had absolutely zero attacking ideas whatsoever.

Like Napoli, Lazio is also a team that is in pretty bad shape at the moment — Maurizio Sarri has left the club and former Juventino Igor Tudor has replaced him — and yet they looked like a team reborn when playing Juventus. If it weren’t for the poor finishing of Valentín “Taty” Castellanos, who wasted two massive chances in the first half, they would have won the game more comfortably.

They had to wait until the very, very last kick of the game when Matteo Guendouzi crossed the ball into the box and Juventus substitute (and debutant) Nikola Sekulov completely lost Adam Marusic, who sneaked in front of him for a completely free header that went into goal.

The month of March definitively proved that one thing: this club is in crisis. Something — hell, everything — has to change to prevent the club from falling into mediocrity for multiple consecutive seasons.

Juventus Women

March was also one of the worst months in Juventus Women history.

In the first two games of the month, the team faced off against Fiorentina in a two-legged Coppa Italia semifinal fixture. Juventus lost the first leg in Florence 1-0 due to a 65th-minute Michela Cantena goal, a match that resulted in the immediate dismissal of coach Joe Montemurro. The Bianconere fell further behind in the second leg as Madelen Janogy scored in the fourth minute of the game after Veronica Boquete’s free kick caused havoc in the box. Boquete later scored from the penalty spot after Lisa Boattin fouled Cantena in the box.

Asia Bragonzi scored just seconds before the halftime break to give the fans and players a glimmer of hope for a comeback, but Janogy quickly extinguished that glimmer in the 50th minute when she scored her team’s third goal of the game (and fourth on aggregate). Final score: 3-1 (4-1 on aggregate) as Juventus crashed out of the Coppa Italia.

Photo by Filippo Alfero - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images

Juventus traveled to Milan to face Inter in the first game of the Poule Scudetto (basically the playoffs for the title). Flaminia Simonetti scored from the penalty spot early on but Cristiana Girelli equalized twenty minutes later, likewise from the spot. The Bianconere fell behind again soon after the break when Michela Cambiaghi took advantage of an error in defense to put her team ahead.

But Juventus turned the game around in a remarkable 5-minute spell. Arianna Caruso and Jennifer Echegini scored in quick succession as the team looked set to grab its first victory of the month. But Annamaria Serturini equalized a few minutes before the final whistle to conclude an eventful opening game of the Poule Scudetto: 3-3.

The Bianconere returned to winning ways thanks to a 4-0 home (revenge?) win against Fiorentina. Echegini was the star of the show as she overwhelmed Fiorentina with her first hattrick for her new club. Julia Grosso scored the game’s other goal and Lineth Beerenstyn could have scored Juve’s fifth late in the game but goalkeeper Rachele Baldi pulled off an excellent save to keep the scoreline somewhat respectable.

Uncertainty

As we all know, Juventus is currently (read: the last five years) in a state of crisis transition. Transition create a lot of uncertainty and one area you can clearly feel and see that uncertainty is in the midfield.

There have been question marks surrounding Adrien “Will-I-Stay-Or-Will-I-Go” Rabiot’s status at the club for two years now. As of the time of writing, the Frenchman has confirmed that he has no idea what he’s going to do next season, so at least there is a poetic sense of certain uncertainty about Rabiot.

While the Frenchman hasn’t been poor this season, it’s clear that he hasn’t played at the very impressive level that he played at last season. As a result, there seems to be a feeling that while fans will miss him after he managed to fight his way back into the team and earn our respect, most of us are fine with him leaving the club.

Photo by Ivan Romano/Getty Images

Then there’s Carlos Alcaraz, the Argentine midfielder on loan from Southampton. I’ve mentioned before how I thought that the Alcaraz signing wasn’t necessarily bad, but just poorly structured. That is, it’s extremely unlikely that a young player that joins in the middle of the season can prove that he’s worth €49.5 million in five months.

It’s no surprise, then, that Juventus want to extend the loan for the entirety of next season in order to get more time to assess the player’s value, which makes perfect sense. Will Southampton agree to this extension? That all depends, according to reports, on whether they get promoted to the Premier League (they’re currently in the promotion playoff spot) which is, of course, another big uncertainty.

Given that the midfield has been the most hotly-debated area of the team since the MVPP era (which was, admittedly, an almost impossibly high bar to ever meet), we’ll keep a close eye on the potential comings-and-goings in this area from now until the start of next season.