The Good
First Half Frenzy
Juventus came out swinging against Roma this past Sunday on the road, and for the first 45 minutes it seemed like things were all starting to fall into place. The boys from Turin looked as if they were set to deliver a clobbering to the opposition, managing the tempo of the match, building cohesive attacking runs, and always keeping Roma on their back foot. For at least the first 25 minutes, Juve was utterly in control. Even when some Roma attacks started to glide past the midfield, the backline of Pierre Kalulu, Renato Veiga, and Lloyd Kelly delivered.
But it was the 40th minute that the game blew wide open, with a screaming shot from Manuel Locatelli that put Juventus in what fans may have thought to be a solid lead based off of how the first half progressed. However, that second half left a good bit more to be desired, as La Vecchia Signora fell into an all too familiar trap.
Renato and Sneaky Lloyd
Ever since the announcement of Veiga’s loan to Juventus in January, the Portuguese center back has been nothing if not consistent. Especially when you factor in that his arrival came at a time where Kalulu was sidelined, and has progressed into a time where Juventus’ main man in the back not named Gleison Bremer, Federico Gatti, is now injured as well. There is something uniquely Juventus-coded about Veiga. He shared the highest number of clearances, five, with Kalulu and Dortmund-turned-Roma defender Mats Hummels. But the real kudos deserved by Chelsea loanee is his ability to play in a less than ideal situation with the best of Juventus sidelined, as Veiga has been dropped what would be a very tricky spot for any other defender.
Credit will always be given when it’s due, and in this case some credit is deserved by Kelly. Yes, he looks a bit nervous when he gets the ball, and has had a long string of bad matches since he traded in English black and white for Italian black and white, but he had a few strong moments against Roma. It’s a good thing his middle name is Casius, because like Casius Clay, Kelly put up a fight that included four won aerials, three clearances, two tackles, and the blocking of a single shot.
Not bad for a guy who has been considered out of his depth since he stepped foot in the sunny peninsula.
Loca-Screamer
If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.
And even better, if you love what you do and do it in a club that you’ve been obsessed with since boyhood, you may just be Locatelli.
After a Kalulu cross was cleared from the penalty area, the rightfully awarded Man of the Match fired a right-footed screaming shot into the bottom corner of the net, securing a lead that ended up being short-lived. But take that goal away, and the Juventus captain still had an impressive game. Locatelli had more tackles than Veiga and Kelly at three, another three clearances, and of the nine long passes he attempted, seven hit their target.
Regardless of the manager or style of play, it seems as if Locatelli is aging into his late 20 like a fine wine.
French Flurry
There is something special about this French loanee from rival AC Milan. Kalulu has stepped up big time to fill some much-needed defensive gaps this season, and maybe after winning some hardware in red and black, he wants to try lifting a trophy in black and white. Of course, that will have to wait until next season.
But over the course of Sunday night, Kalulu was a defensive powerhouse, blocking arguably the most important attempt that Roma made on goal outside of their 49th-minute equalizer. He and fellow Frenchman Manu Kone recorded the most tackles in the match at four, but individually Kalulu had five clearances, kept his long ball accuracy to tidy 80%, and registered a single key pass.
The only downside to his game came when he was caught looking as a Roma corner was converted into the equalizer, an Achilles Heel moment in an otherwise stellar performance.
The Bad
Second Half Stagnation
To borrow the phrase from other BWRAO writers, it truly was a tale of two halves. The first half was much like a child when you try to take away his Kinder bar — aggressive and possessive. It left little room for Claudio Ranieri to work his magic, and Roma was left consistently on their back foot.
The second half, however, felt eerily similar to the matches that the Juventus faithful watched in the twilight of Thiago Motta’s time at the club. The energy completely shifted after Eldor Shomurodov found the back of the net, and no amount of tinkering or substitutions could save the match from distributing a single point to both the wolves of Rome and the zebras of Turin.
Juventus need to realize their situation, and that every minute of every match until the close of the campaign needs to be considered a fight of epic proportions. Otherwise they may find themselves next season wearing an orange patch on their shoulders during their European campaign, or worse, the green one of the Conference League.
Vlaho-brick
Dusan Vlahovic’s goal drought continued this past weekend, and now it has become a question of if he’s the right man for the club. The Serbian striker has not found the back of the net since the late-February win Cagliari, and has had some disastrous recent performances. In his two matches under Igor Tudor, Vlahovic lost 90% of his ground duels, lost possession 33 times out of 66 touches, completed zero dribbles, committed four fouls, and, of course, contributed zero goals.
Now, there are a lot of factors at play here, and it can be argued that within Vlahovic’s role it’s more about being fed chances than creating his own. However, even when those chances arrive, the striker turns them into shots that are off target or slow and painful whiffs of shots that end up easily in the keeper’s gloves.
What happened to the hat trick hero of Fiorentina that the Old Lady shelled out €80 million for? In his 98 domestic games wearing purple, Vlahovic netted 45 goals. In his 99 domestic games at Juventus, he has scored 42 times. Now, on paper, it may seem he’s been consistent, but Juventus is not Fiorentina, and the idea of any transfer to a big club is to supply a team around this player that can bolster performances, but for Vlahovic is simply has not worked out like that, as he is arguably worse today than he was during his time in Firenze.
The striker was best under Max Allegri in the 2023-24 campaign but still didn’t live up to the hype, floundered under Motta, and now after two games since the managerial change is a ghost with Tudor.
An Old Story
Juventus fans know a few things because they’ve seen a few things. And this season the story has been oppositional equalizers. Yes, the story of Lecce, Atalanta, and Lille in the early matches of the season have continued into the spring. Juventus go up a goal, some time passes, and in this case a short window of time, and then everyone goes home with a single point.
And here we are again, in the same predicament, just under new management.
It’s the long-term issue that has plagued this season, and maybe at this point it’s just something we need to accept until Bremer returns to grace the pitch. Or Gatti. Or Juan Cabal. The point being that this Juventus squad has not been in its prime since playing RB Leipzig early on in the Champions League campaign in October, and has suffered defensive injuries that have destroyed the hopes of titles this season.
Tudor was left a patchwork defense, and while it’s doing its best to fill those gaps, nothing will change quickly.
The Ugly
No Bail Out
After the win over Genoa, there were high hopes for another stellar Kenan Yildiz performance, but unfortunately those hopes fell flat. The starboy started strong against Roma, but eventually was relegated to being quiet and making very little impact.
But that is really the point here.
This club cannot operate on the hopes that one immensely talented player can bail them out when the second-half performances lack any momentum to finish strong, and make no mistake, Yildiz did bail out Juventus against Genoa with his 25th-minute goal that ultimately led to 65 subsequent minutes of attempts, offsides, and inability to solidify the lead. Lighting was not going to strike twice against a team as in-form as Roma. As it’s been said since the first few strings of draws this season, Juventus cannot operate on a park-the-bus mentality with so many backline issues.
The momentum has been better over the past two matches under Tudor, but there is still something off about this team. It can’t go up more than one goal, and the backline is simply not strong enough in the absence of so many key players to defend a shaky lead for an entire half.
Buono, brutto, o cattivo?
I’m giving Juventus some leeway here. Two matches under Tudor won’t tell us a full story. These things take time.
The first half was brilliant, the team was dominant and Roma’s heads were spinning. But the second act of this great calcio play did not impress. I’m sure that if it were a more provincial and low-table team there could have been an extra goal but Juventus knew just how good their opponent was going into this. You can’t give Ranieri an inch or he will take a mile. (We’re covering European sports here, so let’s replace that with centimeters and kilometers.)
The fight for the Champions League is on, we as Juventus faithful know that, and to an extent the players know that too. But for a long time I’ve said that the past half decade of Juventus has not been a one that is of Champions League quality, and aside from the financial impact of qualification, does going out against PSV shock anyone when looking at the long list of clubs that have knocked us out since the name “CR7” was relevant to Juventus?
I know people will be upset to hear this, but the current Juventus is not really a Champions League quality team, and maybe a spell in the Europa League, maybe even that cup, can give a moment of realization to everyone that this is Juventus. This club is the standard of excellence, of victory, and the greatest team in Italian history. Much like the moderately successful Europa League campaign of the 2022-23 season, it could give some much needed clarity to explain how far this Icarus of a club has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic.
And then, of course, show it what it needs to do to come back.
As for a rating: buono for the first half, brutto for the second.
