Juventus 0 – Parma 1: Initial reaction and random observations

As Juventus walked off the field at the Tardini at halftime Wednesday evening, not only did they suddenly find themselves down on the scoreboard but also in search of answers. It had just been an opening 45 minutes in which they looked more like their old, ineffective selves rather than the team that had strong first halves in the previous games under their new manager.

Something … anything … needed to change.

Did it? Nope, not even close, my friends.

Juventus suffered their first defeat under Igor Tudor and looked a lot like the team that struggled for a large portion of the time during the time in which the man he replaced was manager. Juve were incredibly ineffective in attack and had one Lloyd Kelly-centric mistake at the back clear the way for Parma — who entered Matchday 33 just a couple of points above the relegation zone — to make their goal right before the half stand after the break and claim a 1-0 victory over Tudor’s squad that is potentially a major setback in the quest to finish in the top four. With pretty much everybody else around Juventus winning either this weekend or Wednesday, Juve’s chance to get back into fourth place went up in smoke with a whimper rather than in a performance in which they were just completely unlucky.

Or maybe you would like to describe in a much more profanity-heavy kind of way.

I wouldn’t blame you for that. I certainly said a few things of that ilk as I watched the time in the second half tick away and wonder when, exactly, Juve’s players would show any sort of sense of urgency to push for their first goal of the day.

That never arrived. And Parma, not Juventus, got three huge points to try and achieve their main objective during these final six games of the 2024-25 season.

Now, with the way the other postponed fixtures went Wednesday, Juventus are still in fifth place and part of a five-team logjam from Bologna in fourth to Fiorentina in eighth that is separated by all of four points.

Juventus didn’t deserve three points against Parma. Hell, they didn’t even deserve the single point if they had somehow scored in the second half and pulled even with a Parma side that hadn’t beaten Juventus in the last decade.

Why’s that? Well, let’s just have some fun with a few numbers from this one:

• Juventus players shown yellow cards: 3
• Juventus shots on goal against Parma: 2
• Juventus crosses attempted: 37
• Juventus crosses successfully completed: 6

It was bad. It was really, really bad. This was the kind of performance that we saw from Thiago Motta’s Juventus — the kind of game where they were ineffective in the final third and, because of it, have one singular mistake at the back come back to bite them in the backside. That’s exactly what happened against Parma

Things were disjointed. Things were all over the place. Passes meant for Juventus players were going straight to somebody in a Parma kit or just completely out of bounds. The strong starts that we had seen the last couple of games just weren’t there at the Tardini. Tudor had done some very good things through his first three games as Juve manager, but how he had his team looking against Parma was far from that.

And the performance was reflective of it.

Juventus didn’t have a shot on goal in the opening 45 minutes. Taking out the highest paid player in the league at the half saw some improvement, but that was just because it couldn’t get much worse. Half of Juventus’ 16 shots were blocked. Their xG for a team that took almost 20 shots and had two-thirds of the possession was a paltry 0.84.

They knew for the last three days that they needed to win to get back into fourth place and match what Bologna did against the league leaders and defending champions over the weekend.

And this is what we got.

Like we said on the podcast this week, Juventus just couldn’t afford to screw up these very winnable games against teams that are in the bottom quarter of the Serie A table. So what do Juve do? Pretty much fumble away three valuable points with a performance like they had against Parma.

I get that Parma are much improved under Cristian Chivu, but what we saw Wednesday night isn’t going to get many points against any team, let alone two direct rivals for a spot in the top four like we’re about to see in a couple of weeks.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• There are many reasons why Juventus are in the situation they currently find themselves, but getting one point out of their two games against Parma this season feels like a pretty big reason as to why they’re in fifth. And we thought have to rally to get a draw against Parma earlier this season wasn’t great, huh? Well, well, well …
• Having any sort of option to buy worked into the Lloyd Kelly deal might be some of the worst business any Juventus sporting director/director of football has ever done. Newcastle fans are just sitting there laughing about that deal every time they see Juventus play.
• I know Kelly has become a bit of a punching bag around here, but it’s not like his level of play and the amount of errors he has made that have led to goals have done something to change about how a lot of folks feel about him. He’s just a total panic buy who has flopped — and it’s not like the bar was all that high to begin with.
• I surely can’t be the only one who has the feeling that Juventus getting a corner kick or indirect free kick has become a total waste of time. They do absolutely nothing from these situations other than see the opposing team head the ball out of the box or the keeper come out for an easy catch or punch. It’s amazing how totally non-existent this phase of Juve’s game has become over this season.
• It makes me miss Bremer even more than I already do.
• It makes me wish Federico Gatti didn’t crack a tiny little bone in his heel.
• Then again, I thought that same thing about Gatti being out on Parma’s goal. Them’s just the Lloyd-related breaks these days, man.
• Because I know you wanted to know, here’s Lilian watching Khephren and looking like his usual handsome self while doing it:

• On the Thuram front, it had to be pretty cool for Khephren to play on the same field in which his father made his name in Italy with Parma for the first time Wednesday night.
• Well, that had to be in the first few minutes Wednesday night before things got bad. Guessing any sort of good mood that both Khephren and Lilian had went away quickly.
• Dusan Vlahovic getting the hook at the half — not a great look!
• So now both of Juventus’ strikers, Vlahovic and Randal Kolo Muani, have not scored in over two months — also not a great look!
• Juventus passes in the final third: 155
• Parma total passes against Juventus: 212
• Boy, you’d think Juventus won with that kind of passing. But nope!
• Giovanni Leoni, would you like to sign for Juventus in a year or two? They way he played against Vlahovic and others, I wouldn’t be opposed to something like that.
• I can’t remember a game where a team’s first three subs were all due to injuries and one of those subs had to be a player who came on earlier in the game for an injured player. Just something very silly about this sport sometimes.
• Andrea Cambiaso, starting his first game in a while, was 1-for-11 with his crosses. Overall, he still looked like a player who is far from when he was clicking in the fall prior to his ankle injury. It’s just something he can’t shake and it’s hard to see him getting back to full form before the end of the season. A big summer awaits for him and Juventus, too.
• Hey, we got to see Alberto Costa!
• Hey, we also got to see Douglas Luiz!
• This was not a very good game for a lot of Juventus players, but Nico Gonzalez … woof.
• At least Juventus’ three previous losses in Serie A came against teams who are considered good. Again, I don’t care what Chivu has done since he became Parma manager, Juve can’t be dropping points — let alone losing! — against a team that is just barely above the relegation zone. Not when you’re trying to get back into the top four and stay there.
• Nope, Juventus just continuing to make us want to slam our head against the wall. Pass the bourbon. I don’t care if it’s just barely after noon as I write this. That was bad.