Nine points clear at the top of Serie A, Juventus are on the cusp of a crisis. Well, that’s what the papers say. Even La Repubblica, typically a sober voice in Italian sports coverage, applied the ‘c’ word to the Bianconeri on Sunday’s front page. Hyperbole? Certainly. But Juventus had conceded six times in the space of four days. A 3-0 defeat to Atalanta in the Coppa Italia was followed by a 3-3 draw at home to Parma in Serie A. Worse, they let a two-goal lead slip inside the last 20 minutes against the Ducali.
There were mitigating circumstances. Giorgio Chiellini limped out of the Atalanta match with a calf strain, while fellow centre-backs Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli were already out injured. Juventus’s matchday squad to face Parma was their first since 2011 not to feature any of the famous BBC. (Though, you don’t have to go back quite so far to find a game when none of them got on the pitch.)
The sale of Mehdi Benatia to Qatar side Al Duhail trimmed the champions’ options further. Martín Cáceres was selected to start alongside Daniele Rugani at centre-back. The Uruguayan only rejoined Juventus on loan last week after the best part of three years away, during which he played sporadically for Southampton, Verona and Lazio. Caceres looked as rusty as you might expect. It ought not to have mattered. Juventus had this game in hand by the 62nd minute, when Rugani volleyed home their second goal at the back post after Cristiano Ronaldo flicked on Mario Mandzukic’s cross from the left. The Portuguese forward had opened the scoring midway through the first half.
Parma, with less than 30% possession, were having a hard time getting on the ball, let alone creating chances. But in the 64th minute, Juraj Kucka was given all the time he wanted to swing a cross in from deep on the left. Antonino Barilla met it with a thumping header beyond Mattia Perin. Several Juventus players were exposed on the goal, but most glaringly Sami Khedira – too slow to track Barillà’s run – and Joao Cancelo – too lazy to offer support. Still, the league leaders had a quick response: Ronaldo rising to meet a Mandzukic cross moments later, restoring their advantage at 3-1. There was little sense of jeopardy here.
And perhaps that was the problem. For a team that had lost so emphatically in midweek, Juventus were inexcusably presumptuous. Rugani ought to have been marking Gervinho far more tightly in the 74th minute, when the Ivorian darted to the front post and met another Kucka cross with a heel flick that deflected off the defender and snuck in at the near post.
The worst was yet to come. Two minutes into injury-time, Juventus had Mario Mandzukic in possession down by his own corner flag. If he had simply booted the ball into touch, they likely would have been fine. Inexplicably, he chose to pivot and chip a pass back towards teammates on the edge of the box. The ball deflected off one opponent and fell to another – Luca Siligardi – who volleyed it on for Roberto Inglese. He resisted a weak challenge from Rugani and squared for Gervinho, whose close-range shot Perin could only palm on to the underside of the bar. It bounced down across the line for an improbable equaliser.
Never in Massimiliano Allegri’s tenure had Juventus conceded six goals in the space of two games. You could say that they were unlucky on Saturday, an unfamiliar defence punished severely for its missteps. Leonardo Spinazzola, making his first league start for Juventus, played as a wing-back for his former club, Atalanta, but was thrown in here on the left of a back four. Khedira also hit the woodwork twice at the other end. And yet these results have not come out of nowhere. It feels like an absurd thing to say of a team that has dropped just six points in 22 Serie A games, but Juventus have not been playing well for some time.
They should have lost to Lazio in their previous league match, when they failed to record a first-half shot for the first time since Opta started tracking such data in 2004-05. Narrow wins over Torino and Inter before Christmas were decided by individual moments – Simone Zaza’s reckless backpass and Roberto Gagliardini’s shot against a post – more than any manifest superiority. Only Cristiano Ronaldo’s individual talent had rescued a point in the league fixture at Atalanta. Not even he could save them on Wednesday, when Atalanta simply played them off the park. The Bergamo club are in fine fettle at present, but Juventus have not lost by such a margin to any domestic rival since Allegri took charge. Injuries and suspensions are a part of this picture. It is not only in defence that Juventus have been short-staffed. Miralem Pjanic missed the game against Lazio, and Emre Can was catastrophically poor as his replacement. Mandzukic was sorely missed – by Ronaldo especially – during the five games that he missed with a muscle strain before returning on Saturday. A team with Juventus’s resources, however, cannot expect much sympathy. Paulo Dybala and Alex Sandro were among the unused substitutes this weekend.
Taken in isolation, the draw with Parma is no catastrophe. Juventus are hardly in danger of losing first place as things stand. The crisis talk in papers such as La Repubblica relates not to Serie A, but the club’s ambitions of winning the Champions League.
The club’s president, Andrea Agnelli, was unabashed in telling players before this season began that their ambition ought to be to win every competition that they participated in. Defeat to Atalanta means that they have already failed. This will be the first time under Allegri that Juventus fail to win a domestic double.
A Champions League last-16 clash with Atletico looms larger than ever on the horizon. There is not truly a crisis in Turin, but with neither of Bonucci or Barzagli expected to make it back in time for the first leg, there is at least a mounting sense of concern.
Juventus’ Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo (left) is dejected as Parma players celebrate after scoring a last second equaliser during the Serie A match. (AFP)
