Max Allegri was satisfied with the result but insisted that Juventus can’t repeat their second-half performance against Freiburg again. The Bianconeri took a 1-0 lead through Dusan Vlahovic in the first after the home side were reduced to 10 men, but failed to capitalise on the man advantage until late in the game when Federico Chiesa secured the result. Speaking in his post-match press conference (as quoted by TuttoJuve), Allegri explained why he thinks the team needs to improve on aspects of their game and looked ahead to this weekends Derby D’Italia against Inter:
A verdict on today’s match?
“The result is good, but we must not get excited. We have reached the quarter-finals, but there is still a long way to go, but now there is only one match left before the break and we must prepare for it in a great way. What happened in the second half must not happen again, we could have done better, we have to work on that.”
How is Di Maria?
“His condition is good, we have three days to put some fuel in his legs, tonight I didn’t want to risk him.”
Now comes Inter…
“We have a match as important as the one against Inter, we will have to be good at playing it in the best possible way.”
How important is the goal for Vlahovic?
“The goal is important for him and for the team, just like Chiesa’s goal is important”.
What needs to be done better?
“As I said though we need to improve, as a team, in certain situations. We had to do better in the management of the ball, because with the extra man we made too many wrong passing choices.”
“Today it was important to qualify, but we have to improve in some situations such as in the management of numerical superiority: in that case we had to make different choices in the management of the ball. It also depends a little on the characteristics of our players, most of them are counter-attackers.”
“I’m happy for Dusan from a mental point of view, but I think about the second half and say that it’s not good. We have to manage these situations better. We can’t make mistakes like that on choices and passing lines, that’s not good”.
Del Piero: how important is it to have Vlahovic and Chiesa at the top?
“Having them in top mental condition is a confidence boost for sure, but I think about the team’s performance in the second half”.
What do you criticise the team for in the second half?
“There were 2-3 situations, then Szczesny put the icing on the cake with that throw to Kean… These are situations that must be improved, but it also depends on the quality of the forwards: excluding Di Maria they are all counter-attackers”.
Can this be the turning point for Gatti?
“Federico gave a good performance today, but the team did a good job passing the ball with a good second half. We can’t play a second half like that against a 10-man team, we have to think about that and improve.”
” I wasn’t angry with Kean, but the second half had to be done in a different way. We had to work, we made too many wrong passing choices”.
What feeling did Chiesa give you?
“I’m happy because he scored a goal, Federico was the most recoverable of all, scoring a goal was important. But we need to improve in the management of the ball, to grow, in 11 against 10 we lowered the attention and the rhythm too much”.
You seem to be angry about how this qualification of the round arrived…
“It is an important result, because this team had only lost to Dortmund in August. The result is good, very good in fact, but let’s not get excited because we are in the quarter-finals. We have to think about what we did in the second half and improve.”
Can Di Maria play against Inter?
“I didn’t risk him because we didn’t need him. He will definitely be available to play in the game against Inter.”
