Are Juve the real deal?

by DeviAngel Wed Nov 30, 2011 12:41 am

Week 13 saw Juventus move a step closer to being named credible title challengers after a convincing and organised 1-0 win over Lazio on Saturday night. Aside from Simone Pepe’s match-deciding goal, the Old Lady had clear opportunities to score and generally looked in control of their top-of-the-table clash with Edy Reja’s men.

It was the latest game to demonstrate Juventus’ new-found on-pitch determination, as organisation and energy frustrated Lazio for long passages of play. What was clear at the Olimpico was the visitors’ comfort as a team unit. Although Conte’s attack-minded tactics raised questions and criticism in pre-season, his players’ commitment to and application of those tactics is proving to be the difference in key games.

Instances on Saturday ranged from Andrea Pirlo’s regular options on both sides of the pitch to Pepe and Arturo Vidal’s competence to communicate and share right-back and central-midfield responsibilities when Stephan Lichtsteiner found himself out of position. Most pertinent to Conte’s early success, however, has not been the formation, variance of it or the players’ familiarity with positioning, but their application regardless to hound and press opponents for possession.

If they lose the ball, it isn’t for long. It is most likely why the team boast the highest average possession stats in Italy and the fourth highest from Europe’s big Leagues. This pressing is also perhaps why a trend is developing in games that is seeing their opponents left looking the visibly more tired side in the closing stages.

It was perfectly demonstrated on Saturday. From the final 20 minutes of play, where Lazio needed to deliver an onslaught, they only mustered one shot. This was not the result of a fitter Bianconeri defence, but the likes of Pepe, Vidal, Claudio Marchisio and Alessandro Matri being as involved in pressing for possession.

Hernanes and Miroslav Klose were able to respond and put in more-than decent performances, but Juve’s hounding of their teammates highlighted the gulf in technical assuredness that still exists at Lazio and is the difference between runs of form and pushes for titles. Pre-match, Reja described the game as season-defining, perhaps explaining why post-match, he chose to deflect attention towards refereeing.

Compared to this stage last term, Juventus are now six points, five places and one clean sheet better off. Under Conte, they also boast a greater goal difference having conceded five goals fewer, whilst after 11 weeks of last season no team was unbeaten, as Juve remain this. Despite all of this and being a point clear at the top of the table and with a game in hand, Conte is still refusing to talk about a title challenge.

He admitted post-match that it is as much down to superstition as anything else, but pre-match, he was initially overly zealous in discarding his team’s title credentials, stating he would ‘never’ talk about the Scudetto, before rethinking and relaxing to the notion. With Saturday’s performance and result following similar ones over Milan and Inter – and with their Tuesday opponents, Napoli, already nine points behind them – talk of the title is becoming an increasing inevitability.

Conte’s realism up to this stage of proceedings is with acknowledgement to the 2009-10 and 2010-11 campaigns where arguably equally strong starts to seasons dramatically dissipated into respective seventh place finishes. Indeed, last season saw the team sitting in second by as late as a week before the winter break prior to a collapse that then saw them fail to win two-thirds of their remaining League matches.

Realism is perhaps where the Coach and dressing room is right to remain too. Whilst they have won some important fixtures this season, it is equally significant that, if they are to be considered title-runners, they have failed to beat Genoa, Bologna, Chievo and Catania. Perhaps the most significant tests that will answer if Juve are in the Scudetto race, and win Conte around, are not forthcoming trips to Napoli or Roma, but the home ties with Cesena and Novara that they are interspersed with.

Indeed, smaller clubs have so far proven to be the bane of Napoli’s League campaign. From 94th-minute goalscorer Edinson Cavani’s 50-yard run to Matias Schelotto slumping in the centre circle with his head in his hands, the reactions to Napoli stealing a 1-1 draw at Atalanta highlighted just how close both sets of players believed the Orobici were to beating the Partenopei. The draw leaves Walter Mazzarri’s League side with a mountain to climb domestically and puts significant pressure on Tuesday’s meeting with Juventus.

Meanwhile, things are looking desperate for Eusebio Di Francesco at Lecce. The club have backed the 42-year-old with no previous coaching experience in the top flight and indicated that there are plans to enter the transfer market in January. However, fans made sure to make their dissatisfaction with results known at the end of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at the Via del Mare to Catania, already the team’s fifth defeat at home this term. With a very hard run of fixtures to follow, Di Francesco’s admittance that they cannot survive may be true, with or without him.

The theme of the weekend proved to be the number 100. Palermo’s Devis Mangia celebrated his 100th game as a professional Coach with a win over Fiorentina, German Denis maintained his position as Capocannoniere with a goal on his 100th Serie A appearance, whilst Zlatan Ibrahimovic surpassed 100 League goals in Italy with a brace against Chievo.

by Juventude Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:18 am

I really felt that this stretch of five matches (Inter, Fiorentina, Palermo, Lazio, and Napoli) would let us know what kind of team and manager we have and this Juve team and Conte appear to be the real deal. Now, they just have to win convincingly against bottom half of the table teams.