It’s not his team. This one Juventus which takes scopole left and right, which is a foot and a half out of the way Champions Leaguewho plays a messy, uneven and worn-out first half is different from what he had in mind. Massimiliano Allegri he has been repeating this for a month. It’s not just absences that weigh, players missing because the wear of time has reduced them (Di Maria stopped again) and a rose with many thorns (Pogba’s management, the most painful).
There is no more. It gets worse because the defeat and the performance with Maccabi Haifa mark a point of no return. It was humiliating. Confirmation that, having reached the bottom, the players continued to dig as if they wanted to bury the traumatic momentaccio and Allegri himself. On the eve of the match, the coach mentioned the speech given to the players gathered in the midfield circle before finishing. He had talked about mistakes not to make any more, trusting the team concept, the Juve mentality that is something else, the personality that is missing. He tried to spur everyone on with bold words and pride.
If the effect is colorless evidence in Europe, the reality of the facts has put him in front of a team that staggers, gropes, is out of control. That doesn’t follow you anymore. “If we lose all tackles, it’s not the coach’s fault”, he let slip in the interviews confirming the decision to send everyone in retreat to the derby with Turin and feeling able to unravel this problem by rejecting any possibility of dismissal. Words that match it “let’s play back” pronounced after the knockout at San Siro with Milan.
Phrases that reaffirm his position between two fires: on the one hand, players who have difficulty understanding his indications (the gesture of his deputy, Landucci, at Meazza seemed like a surrender), on the other a direction that keeps him in the saddle because he changes now , a month after the break before the World Cup, is useless. But that Allegri can stay until the contract expires (2025) is a gamble for strong punters, not business managers. On the other hand, it is not the impression that there is already a date for the exemption as the next coach has already been identified (the delay in the renewal of Conte with Tottenham is another sign) to whom to entrust the refoundation.
“As for the players who follow or not – it’s the reflection of Allegri after Maccabi -. All together. You have to go out and do it as a team. Otherwise, one day is good for one, one day is good for another. And we have to work on that.” Someone will pay. It doesn’t say it clearly, but between the lines this is the message that can be read. And he reiterates his burning disappointment, tormented by the sight of a team that in the first half “He can’t play like that, he can’t stop playing as a team, like Juventus”.
A context of punch in the stomach and lump in the throat. Devastating for a club that is traditionally a monolith but from the spa to the top it is no longer considered the various souls (Maurizio Arrivabene, new center of power, and Pavel Nedved who have different views on the technical framework). The sibylline tweet from Lapo Elkann (no words, just three reticences) lends itself to many interpretations, none of them positive and with one certainty: the renewed confidence in the coach by Andrea Agnelli It’s a mouthful to swallow by covering your nose.
“I speak to the president every day, he said important words to the team,” says Allegri. And if after the blow at the Stadium with Benfica the screams and the ‘Czech fury’ that hit the team weren’t enough, now the direct intervention of the president puts everyone back to the wall. The crack has opened and widened, the creaks worrying.
One condition breaks everything: from the squad, between those that the coach can’t take anymore (or never did, Angel Di Maria’s lip is iconic) and others (few) that are still faithful to him, but don’t have the same weight as the ‘senators’ of the past, even the property. “We just have to keep quiet, work and get out of this situation – Allegri repeated last night -. We lack heart and passion. We play too much individually, we have to get back to being a team.”.
A circumstance that gives the exact dimension of the black hole into which a group has fallen, which in mid-October – to read the current figures – is faced with a mortifying sporting disaster. Scudetto struggles that talking about it risks being taken like crazy by -10 from the top. Fourth at -7, the blood freezes in the veins and it’s a heart attack just thinking about the reflexes in the balance of not qualifying in the Champions League. At the bottom of the glass is a mixture of hemlock that poisons the whole environment after the fool on Tuesday night.
Source: Fan Page IT
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
