Juventus 0 - Benfica 2: Initial reaction and random observations

Yesterday at 06:06 PM

That was not an enjoyable evening of football in Turin.

To have any sort of shot at putting a serious change into their final Champions League league phase table position Wednesday night, Juventus needed to put forth quite the performance against a Benfica side that has been all over the place of late.

Instead of a strong showing, Juve just threw out quite a dud.

Juventus had more shots, vastly more possession and even more of the shots on target. But the whistles in which Juve received after the final whistle were very much understood. This Juventus that we saw in the 2-0 loss to Benfica both struggled to seriously trouble the visitors' defense and also looked like a team that was playing with just one natural defender following Pierre Kalulu's hamstring injury that forced an experimental backline even further exacerbated the situation. It was another dour performance in a season that has many of them, and it's the final game of a league phase in which Juventus drew as many as they won and lost two of their four home fixtures to teams that were very much not in great form when they arrived in Turin.

It all added up to Juventus finishing in 20th place in the league phase table, all of a point above 24th-place Club Brugge. Yes, the same side that Juve struggled against last week in Belgium.

That means, when Friday's playoff round draw arrives, Juventus' pick of opponents to keep their European campaign alive are two very familiar names from this season: AC Milan or PSV Eindhoven.

On paper, that's not exactly the worst of the outcomes — if you were following the live table at all during Wednesday night's 18-game slate, there were times in which Juve were potentially up against Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Atalanta or Paris Saint-Germain — but it's hard to have a whole lot of faith based on how Juve are currently playing and how soon the two playoff rounds come up next month.

There's also this: Via OptaChuks in the BWRAO Slack, of all the teams to have qualified for the next phase of the Champions League, only Club Brugge scored fewer goals than Juventus during the eight-game league phase. That's it. That's the list.

That ineffectiveness in front of goal was on display again Wednesday night. So was the fact that for much of the proceedings Federico Gatti was the only player in Juve's back four actually playing in his natural position. Juve's defense was stretched, and the concerns of how the defense and midfield would hold up when the starting lineups were announced didn't take all that long to be confirmed.

Even with all that possession and having more shots, Benfica were the much more dangerous side than Juventus. They had more xG, they had more big chances than Juventus and they certainly put Mattia Perin under more threat than what Benfica keeper Anatoliy Trubin had to deal with pretty much all night.

(Perin made some huge saves just like he did on this same field against Stuttgart three months ago. He deserved none of this, and was not at fault for either goal.)

But this is just what Juventus continues to be even with performances like the win against Milan sprinkled in. They still struggle in the final third. They're still making big mistakes at the back that make you miss Bremer even more than you already do. They're sometimes just waiting for Francisco Conceição or Kenan Yildiz do something cool out wide as they wait for a cross to come in. For as refreshing as the performance against Milan was, it's starting to look more like the exception to a rule that is becoming more and more frustrating.

I mean, 10 of Juventus' 17 shots on the night were taken from inside of the box and yet they still finished with an xG that was below 1.00 and much lower than Benfica's total.

And yet ...

So here we are again looking at a Juventus performance that leaves a whole lot less than desired. We're done with the UCL league phase, we're done with the hectic January schedule and now turn our attention toward Friday's playoff round draw and what's to come in the next couple of weeks. But even with that, Juventus aren't filling anybody with optimism that they're about to turn any sort of corner and string some good results together.

That win over Milan was great, but it's basically been three steps back after that both in terms of overall performance and the simple result of the fixture. So maybe they're going to turn a corner, but the problem is that they're actually walking backward. That's not good.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• Pre-game thought No. 1: Fullbacks? Who needs actual fullbacks?
• Pre-game thought No. 2: And you thought Max Allegri was going to be the manager that terzino'd Timothy Weah, huh? Take that! (This might as well be a temporary, one-time thing. You'll have to stick around to find out.)
• Pre-game thought No. 3: Weston McKennie goes from frozen out of the squad (again) in June and July to wearing the captain's armband in the Champions League come January. What a wild ride it has been for a player who continues to just prove folks wrong.
• Didn't take long to find out just how much of a mess the defense could be without any natural fullbacks, huh? Well that was a big swing by Motta that absolutely backfired.
• After further investigation, I can confirm Weah is not a fullback. Thank you for your continued support of this project.
• PIERRE KALULU YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GET INJURED. STOP IT.
• Then you see the slow-motion replay of the sequence in which Kalulu did get injured and you can totally understand why his hamstring went twinge and he had to come off. Props to him for trying to grit his teeth through it, but you figured that would be quite a big ask knowing how long he was down on the turf. Just another sign this game was cursed.
• Now we just put together a prayer circle for Pierre's hamstring. That feels appropriate. And much needed.
• So Renato Veiga wanted more minutes at the place he went out on loan for the second half of the season. That now suddenly could happen this weekend. Welcome, dude.
• I'm guessing the traveling Benfica fans had plenty of nice things to say for former Porto player Conceição when he went over to take a corner in the second half. Yup, nothing but greetings and salutations.
• We got Headband Yildiz for a little bit. Didn't really kick on like Headband Chiellini, but it was there. And then it wasn't as the second half went on because he simply took the big head wrap off and let that lovely head of hair flow again.
• So Antonio Silva looked pretty good. Maybe Juventus should target him.
• Manuel Locatelli didn't play the first 15 minutes yet still led Juventus with 117 (!!) touches.
• Juve attempted 35 crosses. They completed seven of them.
• Juventus needed a big game from Dusan Vlahovic and instead they got one where he was utterly frustrated, wasn't hiding that fact and then trying to bulldoze his way through two or three defenders in a very small pocket of space before turning the ball over. Just not good.
• Microcosm of Juve's ineffectiveness in the final third — they do a couple of nice combination passes before getting the ball out to Samuel Mbangula, he passes it to Douglas Luiz who then passes it back to Mbangula. The young Belgian then wants to play it back to the Brazilian midfielder, but the ball goes about six inches and it's a turnover.
• Boy the marking on both of Benfica's goals were not great. Same be said on the couple of chances in which Perin bailed out his teammates. It was just a mess at the back at times.
• Then you have those self-inflicted wounds where Juve turn the ball over right outside of their own penalty area and just gift-wrap a golden scoring chance to Benfica. Again, thank goodness for Perin or else this probably would have been a 3-0 or 4-0 loss.
• A certain Alessandro Del Piero used words like "disorganized" and "inattentive" to decribe Juventus' performance against Benfica during post-game analyis on Sky Italia. These are hot takes, they're the correct takes. As always, a Del Piero says things in a very clear way and is right on the money.
• Benfica finished with 34 tackles as a team. Bunch of hounds.
• Juventus accurate passes: 558
• Benfica accurate passes: 237
• That certainly didn't help Juve actually score a goal. (But that's just me venting right now.)
• Juventus had nearly twice as much of the ball in the second half yet Benfica recorded the high xG. That sounds about right for how ineffective Juve were in the final third.
• All of that possession in the second half yet Juventus didn't create a single big chance after the break. That also sounds about right on the money.
• It's a shame that the last two times Juve have worn their beautiful third kit in the Champions League they've put forward performances like they had against Aston Villa and now Benfica. At least it's still pretty even if the football wasn't.
• I really don't feel like talking about what Juventus did or didn't do against Benfica anymore. Time for the bourbon again. That is, if there's any left over from over the weekend after Juventus' performance against Napoli. So, as you can tell, the vibes are great.