Max Allegri singled out Angel Di Maria for praise following Juve’s 3-0 win over Nantes in the Europa League: ‘He’s a champion and different to the others.’ The Argentine winger delivered his performance of the season so far, scoring a sublime solo goal before going on to complete a hattrick and single-handedly put the Bianconeri into the last 16 of the competition.
Speaking with Sky Sport Italia (as quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport) after the game, the Juve coach expressed his satisfaction with the performance and his reservations on progressing in what he sees as a tricky Europa League campaign:
“I am happy with the performance, it was not an easy match. The French crowd were passionate. We played a good game, managing to exploit the advantage that Pallois’ red card gave us. We have to improve our passing speed, and understand that only by keeping the ball and using the whole pitch do we have an advantage”.
“Di Maria? Champions are different from others, they know how to make everything easy. Players like that raise the level of the team, the others are calmer. Di Maria sees things that others don’t, there are categories of players and he belongs to the champions.
“Fagioli? He and Miretti are the ones who have played the most, they have important qualities. They need to play, they are playing. They alternate between less good games and better games. They have experience, Fagioli has great technical qualities.”
“Juventus, apart from Napoli who are playing a league of their own, have performed well. In the Champions League we were eliminated by Benfica, while in the championship we earned 47 points like Inter, if we don’t take into account the sentences. From the outside, however, they see Juventus on 32 points… I see the season as more than positive: we missed Pogba, Di Maria, Vlahovic was out, as were Bonucci and Cuadrado.
“However, we found some youngsters, who in the presence of the injured would perhaps not have played. Now they are all coming back and we need them all. We cannot snub the Europa League or the league because we have 32 points.”
“Just because we were eliminated from the Champions League, it doesn’t become easy to win the Europa League. We need respect it, we have to get to the end in the Europa League as well as in the Coppa Italia. In the championship too, we’ll slowly see where we get to.”
