Federico Bernardeschi believes Dusan Vlahovic is an extraordinary player, but there’s more focus on him at Juve than at Fiorentina. Both players made the move from Florence to Turin, and speaking in an interview with TuttoSport, the former Juve winger talked about the added pressure on Bianconeri players, especially forwards who fail to find the net.
You came to Juventus from Fiorentina when you were 23, Vlahovic did so when he was 20, and so far in Juventus he has alternated between highs and lows. What are the difficulties of this move?
“When you make such a transition everything really changes. You go from a club like Fiorentina, which is a great club but which aims to build its players and then also make evaluations, to one like Juve where when you arrive you have to win. There is no history. You go and you go to win. It’s a very delicate phase when you arrive, you have to change your mentality a little bit, you have to put yourself at their service a little bit: it’s no longer all about you, as a player and as a person, as it could have been at Fiorentina. This in my opinion is the biggest difficulty, but I think that Dusan first of all has integrated very well and is still doing well: you can say many things, but he is an extraordinary player. Then if at Fiorentina you don’t score goals for three or four games it goes more unnoticed, if you do it at Juve it is talked about more. But this is the process of growth that a player must have: when you arrive at Juve and you don’t score a goal for three or four games the pressure and responsibility increases, but it’s not a bad thing. If the player takes it in the right way it’s a good thing: because it gives you responsibility, it increases your mental and physical status as a player, it makes you stand there and work harder to be able to do what you have to do. And that’s where you grow.”
Speaking of growing up, you saw the first first-team starts of Fagioli years ago and, last season, of Miretti and Soulé. What do you think of their, of growth?
“I think what’s happening with the young people is very good. They are growing by leaps and bounds and that is good for them and for Juventus. They are having a great championship and I am happy for them because they deserve it: hats off to them first and then to the club.”
The best gift of each of the three?
“Of Fagioli definitely the vision of the game, the ability to understand the movement of the teammate. Miretti is much more dynamic and much more instinctive. Soulé is a bit reminiscent of Dybala as a youngster: left-footed, with these flashes of imagination in the tight spaces with which he can get away with. All three of them can have a great career.”
Your friend Chiesa is coming off a bad year due to injury and still has some aches and pains: how do you see him right now?
“Federico needs time. When you come out of such a bad injury it takes time, both physically and mentally, and it should be given to him. Definitely it has not been an easy year for him, he has had some difficulties but it was normal for him to be like that. He just has to stay as calm as possible, he has all the qualities, as he always has. He simply has to keep working and stay calm, slowly he will get back to doing his thing.”
Of the 183 games with Juventus, is there one you would replay?
“Yes. The quarterfinal with Ajax in the Champions League in 2019. Because that year in my opinion we were the strongest team in Europe. There was a series of episodes that were too unlucky that took us out of a Champions League that we could have won. We were really strong that year.”
After seven trophies with Juve, including three Scudetti, and the European Championship with the national team, what is your dream in football ?
“Playing a World Cup. It’s a long-held dream, four years away…. Our generation for various vicissitudes has not yet had the pleasure of playing a World Cup. To dream about it, to smell it, to feel it…. We miss all these things. We are European champions but so many of us have never played a World Cup, and that makes some impression.”
What is the best thing about the MLS?
“What has struck me is the enthusiasm in following football. It’s like it’s a sport that’s still new to them: like when you go to school the first year, that you want to go all the time, you feel like doing it. It’s a sport they don’t know 100 percent yet, but they get so passionate about it, and that bodes well for the future. It’s a new excitement that they feel with football: it’s been there for many years, but for example when I arrived they told me that for four to five years the public’s interest has changed tremendously. But four to five years ago they were saying the same compared to four to five years before that: it’s a continuous evolution and that bodes well. Especially also in the run-up to the World Cup. A passion that then grafts onto facilities and organization with impressive potential-no other league in the world has that. You go and play in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. It’s impressive to say, “Where are you going to play today? To Miami.”
Speaking of Los Angeles, do you talk with MLS champion Chiellini?
“Of course, he is like my big brother. I am really happy for him for the championship he won with Los Angeles because he deserves it. Beyond the football player, Giorgio is a truly extraordinary person in every way.”
What is the best thing about living in Toronto?
“Definitely the potential there. Toronto is a wonderful city, with a thousand different cultures, a freedom of mind, an open-mindedness … there are opportunities for every person and you feel, even though you are in Canada, but it is still part of North America, this ‘American dream.’ You see people working to grow, to move up, because there is so much meritocracy and it’s good to see it from the outside.”
An MLS player ready for a European major?
“Thiago Almada from Atlanta, an Argentine who was also at the World Cup, although I don’t know if he played (6 minutes against Poland, ed.). He is 21 years old, he is an offensive halfback, trequartista.”
