All about the next opponent: Interview with Juventus-Fan Antonio | OneFootball

Tonight, VfB play their second away game of the cur­rent Cham­pi­ons League sea­son and again, they face one of Europe’s big­gest clubs. Befo­re the game, we tal­ked to Juven­tus-Fan Anto­nio.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Anto­nio and thank you for taking your time to talk to us about Juven­tus ahead of the Cham­pi­ons League match on Tues­day. We last tal­ked when Stutt­gart signed Aha­ma­da, which is alre­a­dy a while back. Could your intro­du­ce yours­elf to our rea­ders first?

Anto­nio: Ciao Lenn­art, ciao Stutt­gart fans. Well, I’m a blog­ger, I’m a Juven­tus fan and I run a pro­ject cal­led JTalks dedi­ca­ted to my favou­ri­te team.

Unbea­ten in the Serie A and the Cham­pi­ons League, only one goal con­ce­ded in the league: Is Juven­tus rea­dy for the first Scu­det­to after four years wit­hout?

Juven­tus has chan­ged a lot this sum­mer: it has a new manage­ment in full effect, a new coach, a dozen new play­ers, a new style of play… The goal for this sea­son is to be com­pe­ti­ti­ve and hop­eful­ly to win some tro­phies, as always at Juven­tus.

What makes the teams defen­se so strong? Is it the indi­vi­du­al qua­li­ty or tac­tics?

Tac­tics. This sea­son, in Serie A our oppon­ents usual­ly pre­feer to give up the offen­si­ve pha­se and to focus exclu­si­ve­ly on the defen­si­ve one against us. Basi­cal­ly, they don’t shoot the ball becau­se they stay back. If you look at the sta­tis­tics, it’s quite impres­si­ve: they park the bus becau­se they’re too scared to attack bian­co­ne­ri.

Why? Becau­se Juven­tus in now extre­me­ly good in buil­ding-up from the back and, if pres­sed, it almost always mana­ges to trans­form the opponent’s pres­su­re into an offen­si­ve oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to start the attack and hurt the oppon­ents in tran­si­ti­on.

This is the main reason why they con­ce­de no goals: the oppon­ents almost never get up and they all stay behind with a low block, scared, wai­ting for Juven­tus and for­cing them to play against a lot of play­ers “park­ed” in the defen­si­ve end. This tac­ting is quite good at the moment becau­se it’s so hard to attack against an orga­ni­zed low block defen­se, in Ita­ly. In Euro­pe, it’s easier to play becau­se PSV and Leip­zig tried to high-press Juve and to chall­enge them and Juve was lethal, even in 10 vs 11 (against Leip­zig).

Tal­king about tac­tics: Thia­go Mot­ta repla­ced Mas­si­mi­lia­no Alle­gri in the sum­mer. What kind of foot­ball did he imple­ment at Juven­tus and what is your assess­ment of him so far?

Thia­go Mot­ta total­ly chan­ged Juven­tus style in just a few months. Juven­tus used to be a very defen­si­ve team with Alle­gri, but now the team loves to con­trol the game with the ball pos­ses­si­on and is very very good at buil­ding-up from the back, like i said. If chal­len­ged, Juven­tus loves it and they are lethal in coun­ter-attacks. If not, they wants the ball and they loves to con­trol the tem­po of the game.

What are the strenghts and weak­ne­s­ses of the cur­rent Juven­tus team? Juven­tus main strength is that they are very con­fi­dent when an oppo­sing team wants to do high pres­sing against them and attack them. If you chall­enge Juven­tus, you loo­se. If you don’t, you make it hard for Juven­tus to score, but you don’t even shoot. The weak­ne­ss? It’s pro­ba­b­ly the fact the­re are a lot of inju­red play­ers at the moment and it’s a litt­le bit frus­t­ra­ting. Plus it’s ever­y­thing still a work in pro­gress, it’s a new era, new style of play, so it takes time to reach per­fec­tion.

Mot­ta has to replace a num­ber of play­ers: Bre­mer is out for the sea­son, Milik at least for the rest of the year, Koop­mei­ners bro­ke his rips. How big is the impact of the­se inju­ries on the team?

Well, Bre­mer is a world class defen­der! He’s pro­ba­b­ly the best in Ita­ly, so you can’t replace him easi­ly. Kalu­lu is play­ing top level foot­ball at the moment and he’s pro­ba­b­ly the best Juven­tus play­er right now, but Bre­mer was so important too! Koop­mei­ners is ano­ther key play­er for this team, but he’ll be back in a few games.

Ano­ther play­er who had to batt­le an inju­ry recent­ly is our for­mer stri­ker Nico­las Gon­za­lez who is on loan from Fio­ren­ti­na. Is he expec­ted to be back on Tues­day and how is he fit­ting in at Juven­tus so far?

No, he won’t play against Stutt­gart. He got inju­red against Leip­zig and he’s still reco­ve­ring. He just play­ed 307’ in 6 games this sea­son so it’s still too ear­ly to judge him.

Dusan Vlaho­vic has as many goals as all other goal sco­rers in the team com­bi­ned. How depen­dent is Juven­tus on him and who else should we look out for?

Dusan is a key play­er for Juven­tus, yeah. Expe­ci­al­ly sin­ce Nico is out, Koop is out and Yil­diz is still so young.

Stutt­gart has never play­ed Juven­tus, in fact it is only their second trip to Tori­no after losing to Tori­no FC in the first round of the UEFA cup 1979. Play­ers that wore the shirts of both clubs include the alre­a­dy men­tio­ned Naou­riou Aha­ma­da and Nico Gon­za­lez as well as Ana­sta­si­os Donis, Mau­ro Camo­ra­ne­si, Cris­ti­an Molin­a­ro as well as Sami Khe­di­ra. What is the per­cep­ti­on of Stutt­gart, if the­re is any after our long absence from Euro­pe, in Tori­no?

Well, I’ve seen a cou­ple of matches of Stutt­gart this sea­son. I’ve seen Real Madrid-Stutt­gart and your team play­ed a decent game, all con­side­red. I’ve seen the 5–1 win against BVB and the recent loss against Bay­ern. Stutt­gart is not a top euro­pean club yet, but you have to respect any Ger­man teams. For many fans, this is the first trip to Tori­no and the Juven­tus Sta­di­um.

What is the sta­di­um like and what should we do and see while in the city? Any recom­men­da­ti­ons?

The Sta­di­um is nice, there’s a good atmo­sphe­re and our last two Cham­pi­ons League matches were very enjoya­ble to see. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the trip. Turin is a nice city too: just enjoy food and have fun, and may­be you can visit the Egyp­ti­an Muse­um too, I love it! If you are clo­se to the Sta­di­um, you can also visit our Juven­tus Muse­um: a lot of foot­ball histo­ry, the­re and regard­less of which team you sup­port, you can see pho­tos, vide­os and t‑shirts of famous world class play­ers like Zidane, Pla­ti­ni, Del Pie­ro, etc… very cool.

Final­ly: Your pre­dic­tion for Juven­tus start­ing 11 and the result?

Mmm… it’s not easy becau­se the­re are a lot of play­ers in doubt like McKen­nie and Fagio­li who’re not 100% fit. So let’s try: Perin; Savo­na, Gat­ti, Kalu­lu, Cam­bi­a­so; Locatel­li, Thuram, Dou­glas Luiz; Con­cei­cao, Vlaho­vic, Yil­diz. As for the result, naaah. I’m quite supers­ti­tious so let’s say I hope to see ano­ther very enjoya­ble match like the pre­vious ones against PSV and Leip­zig.

Pic­tu­re: © Jona­than Moscrop/Getty Images