Juventus 1 – Hellas Verona 1: Initial reaction and random observations
· Yahoo Sports
So much of Juventus’ first four games out the March international break was about them taking advantage of the opportunity right in front of them. They got the help from other teams who were playing their direct rivals for fourth place, and they got the result to take care of their own business as they quickly flipped the entire situation in their favor after things looked so bleak heading into the break.
The last two games, though?
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Not as great — and especially this time.
Juventus lined up against a Hellas Verona team on Sunday that had known for the past 48 hours that it was officially relegated to Serie B. But when it comes to that, you wouldn’t have known. Not because Hellas Verona were all that great during their last trip to Turin for at least one season. Instead, it was because Juventus, a team that got more help from Napoli the day before in their scoreless draw against Como, looked about as ineffective in front of goal as we’ve seen in a good amount of time. It didn’t matter how many shots they actually had — oh, and they had plenty of chances! — it was because outside of Dusan Vlahovic’s free kick in the 62nd minute, Juventus were either frustrated by their own actions or what Lorenzo Montipò was doing in goal.
The end result was a maddening 1-1 draw with the 19th-place team in Serie A, a club that has barely won since Christmas and have looked virtually inept in attack over the past couple of months.
But leave it to Juventus, in a game that had virtually everybody thinking three points were the only thing that could come out of it, to both let the first-shot-on-goal curse strike again and fail to score much at all against a team that has been relegated and is one of the worst defenses in the league.
It’s the kind of performance that has you seriously questioning whether they can finish in the top four even though they will still be in fourth place even if Roma beat Fiorentina on Monday night. But when they had the chance to pull even with Max Allegri’s AC Milan on points and go into third on goal differential, Juventus went out and did whatever the hell you want to call their showing against Hellas Verona.
(That’s also the second draw against Verona this season. Considering how bard they are, that’s not exactly something Juventus should be happy about both now and when the season is officially over.)
Juventus finished with 29 shots against Hellas Verona. For much of the game, only a slim number of those were on frame, giving Montipò a relative reprieve despite all of the pressure directly in front of him. Outside of the Vlahovic free kick that tied the game and maybe gave us a momentary glimmer of hope for a win, Montipò looked awfully close to going fully Sorrento and keeping just about everything he had to save out of the goal. He got some pretty good defending in front of him, of course, but it also helped that Juventus were up to their usual (bad) tricks when it comes to try to break down an extremely low block and finishing like they were back in their first full day of training after a couple of weeks completely away from kicking a ball.
It was the kind of performance you might excuse in the very early parts of the season.
But when you’ve got the door open to move into third place and greatly improve your chances of qualifying for the Champions League in the final month of the season? Yeah, not so much.
And to do all of this in front of your home fans, too? In the penultimate home fixture of the season? Not good.
This is 100% a draw that feels like a loss. Juventus had room for error when it comes to their standing in fourth place, but you sure would have liked to see that still in play come the final couple weekends of the season when you’ve got Fiorentina and Torino on the schedule. Instead, that room for error is now basically gone and the final three games of the season now swing back to all being must-win so that Roma or Como don’t pip you right before the finish line arrives.
This wasn’t Hellas Verona playing that much out of their mind that they snaked a point off Juventus. This was the same old song and dance we’ve seen from this club over the last few years — they just sometimes can’t help but be their own worst enemy at extremely important times. They dug their own hole against Hellas Verona on Sunday and they couldn’t figure a way fully out of it.
You just can’t help but think of the alternative to what actually played out. Juventus could have been in third place with a win. Instead, they’re now going to be barely hanging on to fourth place if Roma beat Fiorentina. That is quite a swing for a team that just seemed to be doing so much right only a few weeks ago.
The more things change … or something like that. I don’t know at this point. It’s hard to figure it all out.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- Bad. Very, very bad.
- Really is amazing how this club can look good against clubs that are around them in the table and then just look completely off it against some of the worst teams in the league. Truly amazing two-sided nature.
- An xG of 2.48 and you only put a handful of shots on target. Come on!
- Final three games of the season and we’re still wondering how the heck Juventus might actually be able to score goals. It’s another one of those years, I guess.
- Amazing what a free kick taker who can actually take direct free kicks can do, huh? Maybe if Vlahovic could stay healthy for more than five minutes in 2026 he would help this team out even more than some of us think he can.
- Gleison Bremer looked absolutely great in the opening 33 minutes of Sunday’s game. Then that big mistake of his at the back directly led to Hellas Verona getting a goal out of nowhere in the 34th minute.
- Not like Michele Di Gregorio helped all that much on Hellas Verona’s goal, either. Quite the juxtaposition for Di Gregorio after he was awarded Juventus’ MVP award for the month of April prior to kickoff.
- Just cover your near post, man. It’s not that difficult to do!
- For as good as Vlahovic’s free kick was, the entirety of Jonathan David’s performance felt like the opposite. Just a frustrating day for a forward who just didn’t have it this weekend.
- How in the hell was Roberto Gagliardini not sent off at some point of this game? It could have been for going studs up against David. It could have been for a couple other yellow card-worthy tackles that got called for fouls but nothing more than that. Either way, the is a guy who should not have been on the field for the entire 90 minutes. But these are Serie A referees we’re talking about here, so nothing else really needs to be said.
- As much as the overall performance frustrated the living hell out of me (and you), I couldn’t help but have a sarcastic kind of chuckle when the play-by-play man on Paramount was talking about how Luciano Spallettit’s second-half changes clearly show he was going for the win. Yeah, because he was just going to settle for a draw against an opponent that’s been relegated and Champions League qualification is at stake. Funny how that might change how a manager thinks, huh?
- But seriously, though, what was the point of bringing on Fabio Miretti as the first sub off the bench not named Vlahovic? I know it was just a couple of months ago that I was talking about Miretti deserving more minutes, but not now. He has looked a shell of that player from January and February. He added nothing to Juventus’ overall showing after coming on. And yet he was the second option off the bench? I don’t get it.
- It also just felt like Spalletti was a little slow to react to how the game was progressing. He used three of his five subs in the final 15 minutes or later. He’s usually pretty good with these types of things and reading when he should make his subs. Sunday didn’t feel like one of those instances.
- I know Edon Zhegrova hasn’t had a very good season because of (insert multiple reasons you want here), but that man has also had some crap luck in front of goal. That was a great save from Montipò to put the cherry on top of an overall frustrating-as-hell performance from Juventus.
- I miss Khephren Thuram being consistently good like he was last season. That man has regressed and I’m having trouble figuring out why it is.
- The count stats might say Kenan Yildiz had a good game, but this was quite the tame performance from Juventus’ best player. It’s easy to get why — he’s been battling this knee injury for nearly a month now and we’re just at the point in the season where a player who has logged as many minute as he has can easily be exhausted by it all. That’s not an excuse, of course, but trying to apply some logic here.
- Turn off the Juventus stream and flip to the Miami Grand Prix and there goals Charles Leclerc’s shot at a podium. Hell of a day for John Elkann-owned sporting properties.
- Maybe that’s a sign to just shut the laptop and go enjoy the outside. Can’t be any worse than Juventus’ finish against Hellas Verona, right? (The answer is a clear-cut no because that was bad.)
- What else is there to say? Well, not much. Let’s go have some food. And drinks. Yes, let’s have both.