Now specialized in (negative) «exploits» – 15 points in 15 games and a draw at home with a team already relegated – this time Juve he would like to do a positive one: beat Atalanta, tomorrow evening in Rome, and bring home that Italian Cup which would make the season a little sweeter, but no less difficult. «It’s a final and it must be played in the best possible way – said Massimiliano Allegri the other evening – and above all it must be faced with great serenity».
Only after the match at the Olimpico, and the end of a very troubled championship, will Madama be able to start again with the (new) knight identified some time ago, Thiago Motta: someone who really did the feat, bringing Bologna back to the Champions League after 60 years . There is a basis of understanding with the Italian-Brazilian coach — a two-year contract with an option for a third year worth 3.5 million euros per season — who only needs to sign, as always happens with coaches, even when their contract expires.
Juventus starts again from Thiago Motta
The only unknown, say the few who know him well, it’s in the coach’s nature, happily obsessive at work, sincerely taciturn about the rest and, often, unpredictable. Over the months there have been those who have remembered his feeling with PSG, where he began his adventure on the bench, in the under 19s, and where perhaps one day he will return. Not now, why Juve wants to entrust the relaunch project to him, in tandem with the head of the technical area, Cristiano Giuntoli. It goes without saying, it’s still time to keep our mouths sealed, on both sides: Thiago Motta wants (rightly) to finish the year with the rossoblù, challenging the bianconeri, next Monday; while at the Juventus headquarters only the Italian Cup is in the sights.
Given the moment, and the return round bordering on self-harm, it is better to leave aside technical-tactical discussions and rely on psychology, so much so that Allegri himself, after the 1-1 draw with Salernitana, and the whistles, spoke of two days in which to find tranquility. That is, yesterday and today, a day of eve, to be spent with the morning training at Continassa, and then flying to the Capital.
The impression is that such an apparently unequal challenge can only be overturned by (hitherto dormant) nervous energies.
Juventus, disappointing players
Of players who would like, and should, redeem a long embarrassing second part of the season, culminating with Sunday’s match, against an enemy already in Serie B: well, considering the opponentone of the most disappointing matches of the last twenty years emerged. It is no longer a question of game ideas, schemes, structures, but of going to the elementary particles of every action, of every player, an introspection straight out of Michel Houellebecq’s book: put bluntly, demonstrating that you are not so blatantly inadequate to the situation. Also because, with the new advances, many risk being packaged and sent elsewhere.
