Juventus 2018-19 Serie A & Coppa Italia

Without Ronaldo this squad showed a lot of grinta last season and we achieved such comebacks a few times. CR7 adds even more clutchness, he was good today.

I'm glad Chievo pushed us too, and I hope Sorrentino is alright. It forced us to adapt quickly, it made Allegri use two subs sooner than he normally would and it allowed us to change the game. In the first 30 minutes we should have been up at least two goals, instead we suffered for our complacency.

Szczesny - Dint have much to do. Chievo had 2 goals on 2 shots so cant be too harsh on him.

Cancelo - Bad mistake on the penalty but was very lively going forward. Wouldnt hurt to see him being used as a winger from time to time in this season. Its only one game so hope we can get to improve on his overall defensive game. Looked very uncomfortable against Giacch today.

Bonucci and Chiellini - I think it will take some time to re-adjust themselves to their old selves. There were some moments of miscommunication but that should be fixed in time.

Sandro - One word : BEAST. One of my players of the match in this game.

Khedira - Congrats on the goal but i hope we move on ASAP from him. Slow, heavy touches, lacks the legs to offer that grinta in the middle.

Pjanic - Ok-ish game from him. Thought he looked better defensively than Khedira.

Cuadrado and Costa - Both incredibly wasteful today. Enough said.

Dybala -  Needs to step up. Disappointing game by his standards

Ronaldo - TOP game from a top player. Unlucky to not score today. Although he did look so much better when Mandzu came on.

Bernardeschi - Great game. Showed a lot of fight which was fantastic to see. Goal and assist , cant ask for more.

Can - Impressive cameo. I'm excited for him honestly.

Mandzo - Changed the game as in it helped Ronaldo move to the left and thereby 'freeing' him.

Overall its just only one game but i'm happy with the overall performance. This was a really good test. We are going to look much better as the season progresses. So many options you could try with so many different setups. Allegri is blessed to have a squad like this.

Ronaldo was good. Better than I expected from him on games where he doesn't score.

With time the forwards should figure each other out and make it even better.

Cuadrado and Costa off their game. Mandzukic on it. Dybala disappeared when he moved more to RW.

Motms

Bernardeschi
Sandro
Pjanic

Lets try to do a little week to week update for the team/league

Week 1: Chievo-Juventus 2-3

Synopsis:
You could see what Allegri was going for with the line up he fielded, overloading both sides of the field: Alex Sandro-Douglas Costa on the left and Cuadrado-Cancelo on the right. It worked, we were very strong going forward and in possession we looked very good at times, especially in our transition from defense to attack, Bonucci and our wing play was fundamental for this approach. It was a game that should have been done and dusted inside 30 minutes, we missed some very good chances and to be honest, we should have had a penalty for a foul on Cancelo. As the story of Calcio always seems to go, we paid for this and Chievo scored a fine goal to level it, before Cancelo cucked us with a poor challenge on Giaccherini (a guy who played for us several seasons ago and still doesn't celebrate a goal while playing in his new home, take notes Leo). After this penalty, the match restarted for us, we instantly adjusted and added Mandzukic and Bernardeschi, very powerful move from Allegri that paid off. We tied it on a corner from Bernardeschi (our crossing is sure to be a theme of this season, two goals were from set pieces in this match alone). The would-be winning goal was disallowed, it was a good goal for me but I'm glad we didn't win off this because I'm a bit tired of the drama, we won it instead with a piece of brilliance from Alex Sandro, finished by Bernardeschi.

MOTM: Bernardeschi, goal and assist. It has to be him
Honourable mentions: Alex Sandro, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pjanic, Bonucci, I thought all were very good on the night.

Debuts for: Cristiano Ronaldo, Cancelo, Emre Cananes
Re-debut for: Bonucci

Elsewhere for our Serie A 'Rival' Watch
Torino-Roma 0-1, Roma got the winner late. They looked good throughout the game. Keep an eye on their team because they made a lot of additions, a lot of young players have been added so its a very interesting project.
Sassuolo-Inter 1-0. Sassuolo played very well, deserved this victory. Spaletti went rather conservative with his line up, due to squad fitness I'm sure but there was enough talent on the field for Inter to win this game surely. I still consider them our main competitors this season, they had a strong mercato.
Lazio-Napoli 1-2. Ancelotti kept the same personnel as Sarri but lost Jorginho. They look less imposing but you can't underrate a team that has been together as long as they have with a relatively unchanged starting lineup. I don't expect them to push us as Sarri did, perhaps a gut feeling more than anything. Lazio, on the flip side, still defends like shit and are worse off without de Vrij. In attack, Immobile scored, as usual, but also missed some good chances, as usual too. They lost Felipe Anderson and replaced him with Correa, on first glance it seemed like an obvious downgrade but we'll see how the season goes. It's an uphill battle for Inzaghi and this Lazio team will suffer from not qualifying for the Champions League last season, which I'm sure will haunt them.

Next game: Saturday August 25: Juventus-Lazio 12:00 PM (EST)

I pray for anyone coming to our stadium this season to be honest. Lazio beat us in a game just as this early last season, after beating us in the super cup also. I think we'll concede but we'll win this game. 3-1 is my prediction, and Ronaldo will get on the score sheet

^Great post.

Lazio coming up. They love to play Juve and Immobile turns into CR against us.

They beat us twice with 4 goals from Immobile, and would have probably made us lose the scudetto if Dybala didn't come on and save the season at 90'+.

If Mandzukic is fit enough, I think he should start, he might not have too many minutes in him yet. The rest is roughly the same, De Sciglio I think won't make it to the game, at least not to start. So the lineup should be similar. I'd play Cuadrado over Cancelo and Bernardeschi at the right. If Mandzu is fit, start him in the center, if not Costa on the left.

Allegri:

Tomorrow I await great enthusiasm, Lazio is the team that last year gave us our first defeat. Tomorrow the game is complicated, regardless of plays.

Bonucci back to the stadium:
Leonardo is a Juventus player and is valued by what he does on the field. He is always dedicated, works hard, and is respected.

On attack:
Both Mandzukic or Dybala can play with Ronaldo. These three games until the break are difficult. Tomorrow it will be long, We'll play at 6 and it will be hot, whoever comes in will be important. Today's football is played by 14, the substitutions are very important. During the season we can change the module, the only thing we need is to tune the understanding between all.

On Ronaldo:
It must be understood that Ronaldo will have to rest and be on the bench, like it happened last year in Madrid. Now he plays, then we'll evaluate changes based on the moment.

Lazio are a bunch of thugs, very physical team and they defend in a block of 8 players. Too risky to play double pivot against them, we saw that last season, and anyways they are slow on the wings.

So i expect a 3 man midfield tomorrow, it can be an easy win if we control the ball and use the "long pass to the wings + cut inside" strategy to get quality shots on goal.

Having Bonucci back feels so good man, last week i realized how much i missed those clean relaunch from the back For how much i love and rate Chiellini he just couldn't replace Bonucci in this aspect.

No one can replace Bonucci in that respect @warrior, the value he adds to our transitional play is more than any single central defender. It's not simply playing a nice ball over the top or spotting a run, it's consistently making the right decision with the ball. The majority of our matches are going to be played against teams that will look to defend against us in great numbers and Bonucci, since we didn't invest in a midfielder, will shoulder the burden of helping us create attacks.

My main critique against Chievo is how weak we were through the middle until Mandzukic and Bernardeschi came on. We constantly cycled the ball wide over and over, we really need Dybala and Cristiano to step in-field more and I think all four of Cuadrado, Cancelo, Alex Sandro and Douglas Costa is too much of the same thing.

Tomorrow's game should be electric. Lazio can only attack, if they try to defend against us, it'll be a rough evening for them if we can finish our chances

Maybe this is what we lacked last season in our "midfield": someone able to play the regista role.

Pjanic did well of course but by having this role he could not support the attack, which is something he does extremely well. Last season i felt as if his role was more passive than active and Matuidi/Khedira could not compensate.

With this logic Bonucci improves our midfield as it gives more freedom to Pjanic. Since the first (quality) pass will not depend only on him.

We struggled against high pressing teams on a few occasions last season because we did lack that ability to transition from defense to attack, we relied on Pjanic and DybalaéDouglas Costa coming deep to get the ball too often. When you have a midfield pairing of Khedira and Pjanic and a defensive pairing of Chiellini and Benatia, it is quite easy to imagine what is lacking between them

Week 2: Juventus-Lazio 2-0

Synopsis:
A severely changed line up from week one against Chievo, undoubtedly because of both the performance of the players dropped and the team in front of us this time: Lazio. Not forgotten would have been the 2-1 victory Lazio had at this stadium last season with Dybala missing that penalty. Today, we had an attack of Ronaldo-Mandzukic-Bernardeschi and a midfield of Matuidi-Pjanic-Khedira, the defense was unchanged and Szczesny started once more.

The game went as expected, Lazio pressed hard, fast and used their physicality to try to open up space for Immobile to run into. This is not the Lazio of last season though, I feel that the hype is quite extinguished after missing the Champions League and losing Felipe Anderson and De Vrij while replacing them with Correa and Acerbi respectively. Still, Inzaghi had them playing well enough and pressing hard. We survived it and matched well with them in the midfield. Deservedly, we took the lead through a fantastic strike from Pjanic and we doubled the lead through rebound for Mandzukic in the second half. A clean sheet is always nice, Lazio had a couple chances but relatively we controlled this match very well.

Whoscored: https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1317522/Live/Italy-Serie-A-2018-2019-Juventus-Lazio

MOTM: Pjanic, the matchwinner this week. It's tougher this week because no one had a standout great performance or was particularly poor so I'll choose this is the most objective way, Pjanic scored and it was a great goal. Lets show some love for our newly renewed midfield maestro.

Honourable mentions: Matuidi, perfect fit for a match like this. Cancelo, seemed a much more defensively assured performance from last week and had many bright moments going forward again. Bernardeschi, he had another great showing and it must be said. He was involved and everything he touched looked like it could've led to something more.

Another week for our first Ronaldo goal.

Next up: Parma-Juventus September 1, 2:30 pm est

I'll do our rival watch after the weekend matches

Overall i am satisfied about the team so far... it's very early but you can feel something special will come out of this squad.

Ronaldo creates scoring chances out of nowhere, it gives a mental boost to the troops every time. His reaction when he deflected his own shot then Mandzukic scored instead, he didn't like it I am happy for Bernardeschi who gets minutes as a starter, at whoever's detriment, it's well-deserved.

Pjanic was ok. Great goal but i dint like him very much in this game tbh. Too many mistakes. Kinda wish he'd play in  a more advanced role, now that we have Bonucci around to play out from the back.

Cancelo gave a much improved defensive performance compared to the last game but still work needs to be done. He's clearly a beast going forward but his awareness and positioning needs to improve if he's to become a complete package. I wouldnt mind if in some games we have De Sciglio at RB and Cancelo on the wings.

Bernardeschi gave another good account of himself. No surprises there. Good to see him get game-time from the start.

Bonucci and Matuidi were the two best performers in this game for me. Even tho he's very much a Sissoko, his hustling and grinta is very much needed in this team otherwise our midfield would get run over.

Bonucci was one of the few composed players on the pitch when we we looked really disjointed in the first 50 mins or so. Excellent defensively.

Special mention to Szczesny. With all due to respect to Gigi, having a GK who is comfortable in playing out from the back makes it a hell lot easier for our defense. Crucially, came off the line in an important moment  when our defense was caught out and the Lazio player was through on goal. Have to say he's one of my most fav players in the team right now.

Again, early days as you guys mentioned. But winning like this comfortably while having Dybala, Cuadrado and Costa on the bench speaks volumes of our squad depth. Ofcourse tougher games are due to come but i dont expect us to be playing in full throttle atleast until December or Jan when Allegri would presumably have figured his best team/ideal formation out.

Quick Rival Round Up (sorry lads, busy with real life commitments)

Matchday 2

Napoli-Milan 3-2

Like against Lazio in the first week, Napoli didn't play well but willed their way to victory anyways. Their defense looks like the biggest downgrade in the post-Sarri era, losing Jorginho's presence in the midfield surely hurts them here too for his ability to control the play and play from the back. This Napoli team will score goals but they leak too many, early days though. Milan, oh Milan, you can't lose this game after being 2-0 up... a missed opportunity, a weak showing from them but I think they'll get it together and if this game is any indication, they'll be competitive in the matches against the bigger teams, but I think they'll suffer regardless. They are not good enough to be a top 4 team.

Inter-Torino 2-2

Inter somehow managed to outdo Milan here. I didn't watch this game but briefly I'll say that losing a 2 goal lead at home against a worse team with the squad Inter has put together is not the start to the season Spaletti would have wanted. Still, like last week, I think they are the team most likely to push us this season but not a great start considering the quality of their opponent (with all due respect)

Next we have Parma who will defend WW1 style.

Seeing Dybala Costa and Cuadrado on the bench can't be good. I know we'll play tons of matches this year and everyone will get to start given their form at the time but I mean we have so much potential there to use.

I think Allegri should test a 4-2-2-2 and Parma would be the prefect team for such experiment.
We must field 4 offensive players to easily crack them.

I wanna see Dybala and CR7 both up as strikers with Costa and Berna/Cuadrado on the wings.
Maybe the right wing with Cancelo will be a bit vulnerable but Cuadrado and him can combine pretty well.

.............Ronaldo...Dybala

Costa...............................Bernardeschi

.............Matuidi.......Pjanic......

Sandro....Chiellini...Bonucci....Cancelo

.....................Szczesny

It'll be nice to play Parma again, we always did well against them too. We are gonna dominate and wreck them. They will fight an uphill battle to stay in A this season.

I like that lineup Juvealb

CR7 and Dybala as strikers will be trouble for any defense plus that means more space for pacy guys like Costa and Cuadrado to move into the box or cross.
Imo that's the best approach against ultra-defensive side that want to avoid relegation. Kinda like Crotone last year. With such offensive they will sooner or later crack and if they try to advance then it will surely mean more goals for us and Kommander to score.

@Parma

-Sticking with Ronaldo-Mandzukic-Bernardeschi in attack
-Cuadrado displacing Cancelo in right back
-3 man midfield of Matuidi-Pjanic-Khedira remains

Allegri must like what he has seen from both the midfield in attack last week and this line up allows for some jokers off the bench

I hope we score 3-4 goals today. I expect to see Dybala and Douglas at some point

1-2 final score
0-1 Mandzukic
1-1 Gervinho
1-2 Matuidi

Quick synopsis:
We scored inside two minutes from a cross to Mandzukic which would be the narrative of the first half. Scoring early completely changes the game for both teams from a tactical view. Parma, as the first half grew, became better and better, playing Gervinho into space who was dangerous each time he got onto the ball and unsurprisingly would be the one to level it. Our attack, in large part, was ineffective. As the half grew, Bernardechi got more involved and again, unsurprisingly, our best moments came through his movements in this period. A deserved 1-1 at halftime, with a beautiful combination play between Alex Sandro, Mandzukic and Matuidi ending with a beautiful goal and a more controlled second half performance. Of the first three matches, this was probably the worst of the lot defensively and even our attack did not hold to the previous standard. Alex Sandro, again was great, a welcomed resurgence.

MOTM: Mandzukic/Matuidi. Mario with the goal and assist, Matuidi with the winner, which really was a great goal and he was the best midfielder out of the lot today.

Worst of the match: Cristiano, sorry buddy, were all cheering for you and we know you'll come good, but lets not sugarcoat it. Cuadrado also, seemed like he wanted to get sent off today, he was quite poor as a right back. Not a fan of this game from him.

Yeah Cuadrado was savage, it was sliding tackle mania and most times he could injure an opponent. Besides his offensive effort were of poor quality as if his only concern was to assist Ronaldo.

Quite a rusty game for us but we manage a deserved win cause we dominated. Matuidi was my MOTM, despite some misplaced passes he was everywhere, didn't let Parma breathe for the whole game.

Decent match for Parma they defended quite well, for CR7 it makes a world of difference vs La Liga's crap defenders.

Yes, respect for Parma, they played an awesome match.

We have some early issues to figure out in attack. We obviously want to get the best out of Ronaldo, so that may mean playing Mandzukic with him, which is fine but leaves space for only one attacker. It's hard to imagine that attacker being Dybala because he doesn't offer a lot of width or tracking back. But, I'm not worried, the goals will come and the quality is everywhere going forward and on the bench. We also need to defend a whole lot better than we did today, which I think is more of a priority to Allegri

Nothing against Mandzukic but i don't think just because he did well off the bench vs Chievo that he is the best partner for CR7.

Hopefully Dybala integrates the starting XI soon.

You can't really argue against Mandzukic right now. 2 goals, and an assist (today for Matuidi). His hold up play has been great, he wins everything in the air and he's been effective through the middle or switching with Ronaldo to go out wide.

Maybe we'll go with a 4-2-3-1 involving Ronaldo, Manduzkic and two of Dybala, Bernardechi, Douglas Costa and/or Cuadrado in attack