Juventus 3 - PSV Eindhoven 1: Initial reaction and random observations

09/17/2024 05:30 PM

Juventus' first European fixture in nearly two years proved to be quite the resounding success.

The European lights may have returned to Turin on Tuesday night, but we weren't totally sure what Juventus we were going to see against a high-powered opposition in the form of PSV Eindhoven. That's simply just the natural kind of thinking when Juve go out and do what they've done in the last couple of games on either side of the international break.

No, this didn't prove to be a case of Juventus failing to score.

Instead, at one point, you just wondered when Juventus would actually stop scoring.

The Juventus attack certainly woke up in the club's first Champions League fixture since November 2022. And, as it turned out, the spark was from their youngest player on the field, with Kenan Yildiz scoring a goal that the man who he idolized and now wears the same jersey number of would be proud. It was the first goal in what proved to be a six-minute span in which surprise starter Weston McKennie also found the back of the net to give Juventus a 2-0 lead heading into halftime. They rode that wave from there, with only a late PSV Eidenhoven goal spoiling what was otherwise a strong return to the Champions League in a 3-0 win over the Dutch champions at the Juventus Stadium.

With his goal, Yildiz did the following:

• Became the first player to score in the Champions League's new-look league phase.
• Became the youngest Juventus player to ever score in the Champions League, a record previously held be a fella named Alessandro Del Piero.

And in his year and change with Juventus' senior team, Yildiz has also done the following:

• Scored in his first Serie A start
• Scored in his first Coppa Italia start
• Scored in his first Champions League start

Not bad for a young man who doesn't turn 20 years old until NEXT MAY.

On top of the single fact that Juventus' youngest player on the field did not look even the slightest bit fazed during his first-ever Champions League appearance, Juventus looking like a much more fluid and complete side was very much a big and positive development compared to what we had been seeing the last couple of games. Considering that PSV played a much different way compared to Empoli really packing things in and making it tough for Juve to find space, things being more open for Juventus to hit on the counter made things just so much more possible. The possession numbers were just about the opposite between Saturday's draw and Tuesday's win, but with PSV pressing high and leaving space for Juventus to operate, that left plenty of room for the likes of Yildiz, Teun Koopmeiners and Nico Gonzalez to operate. Not to mention McKennie, too, showing that he is quite adapt at finding pockets in the opposing defense when he makes runs into the box.

Juventus identified it.

Juventus exploited it.

And because of it, Juventus' first Champions League game in nearly 700 days went about as well as pretty much anybody could have imagined.

Yes, it came against a shorthanded PSV side, so there's going to be that caveat. But after watching struggling to put much on frame the last couple of games, you just wanted to see something resembling progress rather than a team that looked unfamiliar with one another and still totally a work in progress.

That doesn't mean Juve are suddenly fixed and there's no more reason to expect performances like we've seen the last two times against Serie A opposition. They are still very much a work in progress because there are so many new components.

But, at the same time, those new components just played a key role in Juventus' biggest win of the young season to date. And with it comes a whole lot of confidence that they're working toward an end product that will be worth it in every phase of the game.

So while we wait for that potential end product to arrive, we can at least look back on this one and say the "work in progress" can still produce some pretty good results, too.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• That's more like it? Yeah, that's more like it.
• This was the youngest starting XI that Juventus has ever fielded in the Champions League. And what do you know? They played pretty damn well.
• Something that will go under-appreciated about Yildiz's goal: the run that Andrea Cambiaso made right before the shot was taken. It totally threw off the man who was defending Yildiz, and as Cambiaso did an overlapping kind of run the defender went with him, opened a shooting lane for Yildiz and the young No. 10 did the rest. It was just beautiful all the way around.
• And with a kiss off the post before crossing the goal line. Just beautiful, man.
• Nico Gonzalez is a D-A-W-G. Dude worked his tail off on McKennie's goal and just overall. He might have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of how PSV approached things Tuesday night. Now we just need to see him not lose possession that much.
• Here's McKennie, rising out of the coffin like The Undertaker once again at Juventus, scoring in Europe to help his team get a memorable win. That's just what Wes does, man.
• McKennie's heat map is a wild ride, too. He was sometimes pushing so high when PSV tried to build out of hte back that he was essentially alongside Dusan Vlahovic. There were other times when he's popping up on the right wing to help out defensively. He was just a little here, a little there but also making Thiago Motta look smart in giving McKennie a start.
• Another interesting twist involving a midfielder: Manuel Locatelli dropping back deep into the defense so that it was sometimes a back five. Didn't see that one coming, but it worked.
• Please, Loca, I beg you — consistency! Find some consistency because it would be great!
• Michele Di Gregorio saves in Serie A this season: 2.
• Michele Di Gregorio saves in the Champions League this season: 3.
• Di Gregorio had to wait a couple of Serie A games to make a save. It took all of seven minutes in the Champions League for that to happen.
• Stats are funny! Everybody have a laugh!
• Di Gregorio, though, is showing quickly that he both keeps his defensive organized — you know, outside of Danilo falling asleep and not following his man on PSV's late goal, which isn't really on the keeper — and controls his box very well. It's impressive to see from somebody who's working with players that he's still growing a rapport with at the back.
• It must also help Di Gregorio that Bremer is really freaking good and showed that again against PSV. Looks like defending in a four-man backline isn't going to be the problem that some of us might have been worried about.
• Vlahovic touched the ball just 10 times in the first half, but something tells me that the 2-0 lead over PSV made that a little easier to be OK with.
• Vlahovic certainly had chances to score in the second half and couldn't put anything away. That chance he had on the great ball from Koopmeiners was probably the best of the bunch. I'm not worried about Vlahovic ... yet. But as we know, he has these spells without any goals. The last thing he needs is to start the season under a new manager in this kind of way. Hopefully with the playmakers around him settling in will take some of the pressure off a player who already has a ton of pressure on him to begin with.
• Speaking of Koopmeiners, I think it should surprise anybody that the more involved he was resulted in him having a much better game as compared to what we saw over the weekend.
• Look at me sitting here a month or so wondering what Juventus will do at right back and now Pierre Kalulu and Nicolo Savona have been incredibly steady at that position the first month of the season.
• I mean, seriously, Kalulu was so freaking steady against PSV. Just absolutely rock-solid defensively and even made a couple of big runs going forward. That'll do just fine. (And if he keeps playing like this and can stay healthy, that buy option from Milan is going to look like a damn steal.)
• RIP to the shutout streak this season. No longer the only team in Europe's major five leagues to allow a goal. At least there's still that Serie A figure going, so there's that.
• Now we get to see what Juventus can do against another strong opponent who have clearly shaken off their tough start to the 2024-25 season. That should be something where you have some popcorn ready just in case.