Just as first-half stoppage time arrived Sunday evening at the Allianz Stadium, you were probably feeling good about how things were going for Juventus. They were up 2-0 against Monza, looked in relative control with the team they were facing being one of the lowest-scoring sides in Serie A and looking pretty impotent over the course of the first half.
Then, stoppage time got going.
And, well, suddenly the tune of things in the stadium suddenly changed.
A happy kind of feeling as Juventus walked to the tunnel at halftime because of said 2-0 lead? Nope, not one bit. That is because of Kenan Yildiz’s moment of just complete madness when things looked like Juve were just going to head off on one more counterattack before halftime. The 19-year-old Yildiz, a week shy of his 20th birthday, was shown a completely deserved straight red for a deliberate elbow to the face of Alessandro Bianco right before the first half came to a close of the X-X win over Monza. It means that Yildiz will certainly miss next weekend’s showdown with Bologna on his birthday, and could very well receive a two-match ban that would keep him out of the visit to Rome to face Lazio.
As a friend put it to me a few minutes after it happened, Yildiz getting sent off in that kind of way “is the cherry on top of the 2024-25 season.”
And that feels just totally on point in so many different ways.
Why? Because this season has seen plenty go wrong — and a lot of that is simply down to the fact that Juventus continue to be their own worst enemy. They can’t help but shoot themselves in the foot time and time again. Doesn’t matter if it’s drawing over and over again against mid- or lower-table clubs they should be beating or now seeing their No. 10 and most in-form attacking player essentially self-sabotage his chances of playing in one of the biggest and most important games remaining this season.
Yildiz knew what he was doing, looked at Bianco right before he did it … and went through with it. That’s the sign of a young man who has previously shown to be much more mature than what his birth certificate says simply losing his head not thinking of the ramifications about what may come due to his actions.
Juventus, with their 2-0 lead, somewhat understandably just set up shop. down a man to try and ensure that they got the three vital points that would send them back up into the top four on a temporary basis ahead of Bologna’s matchup against Udinese on Monday night. I guess that’s a “luxury” you can take when facing a Monza side that struggles to score with any sort of consistency and is basically on the cusp of being relegated to Serie B.
But man, that second half was tough. Really, really tough.
And you can thank the Yildiz red card for that. These things are directly connected — not that anybody who could see how Juve were playing before and then after the Yildiz sending off wouldn’t have been able to figure that out.
The blessing in all of this is that Monza are just pretty terrible in attack (and in general). They finished with 83% possession in the second half yet only recorded two of their nine shots on goal. Michele Di Gregorio had to make two saves despite seeing Juventus going ultra-defensive and basically daring his former club to score against his current one.
Of course, it never would have been necessary if Yildiz didn’t get sent off. And, of course, a positive response to what happened midweek against Parma with what Juve did in the first half was then totally forgotten by how everything with the young Turk went down right before halftime arrived.
This is just Juventus’ 2024-25 season in a nutshell — any sort of good is then totally replaced by something much, much worse that potentially impacts both the current day and future ones.
Not exactly what you want to be doing going into a six-pointer against arguably your biggest rival for a spot in the top four, huh? (Don’t answer that because we all know the truth to it.)
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
- Kenan, what were you thinking? Just explain it to me because I don’t get it.
- It’s 2-0. Your team is in complete control and on their way to three pretty easy and incredibly important points with what is at stake. You’ve got a top-four showdown next up on the schedule. Just think for a second rather having any sort of retaliation on your mind.
- So now, instead of having the chance to ball out and help Juventus win on your 20th birthday, Yildiz will be back in Turin watching from home. Just totally unnecessary.
- Hell of a way for Juventus’ second red card in Serie A this season.
- Monza with 90% possession through the first 10 minutes of the second half is not something I had on the bingo card entering today’s game. Then again, neither was Yildiz doing something stupid and getting a straight red right before halftime.
- It was down to 87% possession in the second half for Monza as the 70th minute arrived.
- Congrats to Juventus for getting their second-half possession total up to 17% before the final whistle sounded. Good work, guys.
- Lost in all of this was the fact that Juventus scored two pretty nice goals courtesy of Nico Gonzalez and Randal Kolo Muani, putting to end two very length goal droughts for two very important players going forward here.
- Do you remember the last time Nico scored a goal? I’ll give you a couple of seconds.
- It was the last time Juventus played Monza … right before Christmas. That’s four months. Not exactly what you want to be saying about a player Juve are about to send a whole lot of money over to Fiorentina for when the obligation to buy kicks in this summer.
- As good as the individual effort was from Gonzalez on the opener, the counterattack from Juventus for Kolo Muani’s first goal since his brace on Feb. 7 was pretty dang nice, too. There are a lot of things that have gone wrong with Juve’s summer mercato, but the sight of Khephren Thuram striding forward through the midfield and into the attacking third is becoming one of my most favorite things these days. The assist and the finish from Kolo Muani just capped off a quick and very good counterattack.
- The funny thing about actually trying to get something out of this game other than “Juventus won 2-0” and “Yildiz did something stupid” feels somewhat impossible because the numbers are way Juve approached things are so completely different.
- Seeing the attacking momentum go from basically all Juventus before the half and then all Monza after the half is somewhat amusing. Again, I’m just glad that Monza are somewhat allergic to scoring goals or else this second half probably would have gone differently.
- But hey, at least the way the second half went allowed somebody like Renato Veiga to absolutely rack up the defensive actions right and left. Dude had 11 clearances!
- Had I completely forgotten that Gaetano Castrovilli was a Monza player? Yeah, definitely did.
- Had I also completely forgotten that Stefano Sensi was also on the Monza roster? Yeah, definitely did.
- Jean-Daniel Akpa Akpro is just a fun name to say. There is no other opinion on this.
- Two straight games in which we get an Alberto Costa sighting? What is this world coming to!
- Monza completing 557 passes is not something I thought would happen on this day.
- Monza passes completed in the second half: 305
- Juventus passes completed in the second half: 65
- What if I told you Monza had eight free kicks and five corner kicks in the second half and Juventus didn’t concede on any of them. Would you believe me? I might not believe myself based on how poorly Juve have defend set pieces this season.
- So the three-game stretch against teams that are just above or, in Monza’s case, very much in the relegation zone ends with Juventus getting six out of a possible nine points. That’s not exactly nice because it should have been nine out of nine, but maybe this season has conditioned us to expect even worse.
- Just glad that Juve beat Monza. Not so glad that Yildiz got sent off with a very deserved straight red. The good just comes with the bad this season and there’s nothing we can do about it.
