Over the weekend, you could pin Juventus’ loss down to simple refereeing incompetence no matter what Luciano Spalletti’s squad did, no matter how much they fought to tie the game and just give us pride in their effort despite being on the wrong end of things on the scoreboard.
What happened in Turkiye a little less than 72 hours later was not comporable.
Juventus didn’t just lose to Galatasaray in the first leg of their Champions League play-off round tie on Tuesday evening. The Bianconeri, despite getting two goals from a player who hadn’t scored since the beloved tournament known as the Club World Cup, just completely imploded in the second half in Istanbul. Galatasaray, a side that Spalletti knew were going to be quite a tough task to play against even if his team played well, just jumped all over Juventus both before and after Juan Cabal got sent off to send his team down to 10 men. What happened was something that even in the craziest of predictions nobody saw coming …
A 5-2 loss and the hopes of getting to the UCL Round of 16 on absolute life support, if not flat-lining already.
The second leg may be next Wednesday night, but even to make a game of it is feeling like a monumental task. Trying to even get ahead of a Galatasaray team that is just scoring for fun these days? That feels like it’s pretty much reserved for much, much more talented Juventus squads than this one is.
No matter how you slice it, this was bad. And on a night when they just needed to avoid complete disaster to give them a shot next week to make it to the next phase of the knockout rounds, they completely fell flat on their face.
And not just giving up five (or more) goals in a European tie for the first time in nearly 70 freaking years, but they did it in a way in which we’ve rarely seen a Juventus team blow up. Which, you know, says something because it’s hard to forget some of the complete disasters this club has had the last couple of years.
Need to look back no further than the last time Juve played in a Champions League knockout round game away from home.
At least they got the crumbling out of the way in the first leg as compared to what happened last season, right?
OK, I say that in jest — and I know after a result and performance like this one that joking is far from what anybody who roots for Juventus actually wants to hear — so let’s get back on track a little. Let me pose the simple question: What in the hell just happened? Why did Juventus go from being up 2-1 thanks to a pair of Teun Koopmeiners goals (!!!) and withstanding the early Gala storm that Spalletti warned about during his pre-match press conference quite well to being a team that allowed four unanswered goals in the second half and seeing pretty much any chances of advancing go up in smoke?
The simple part is that, well, playing with 10 men for the second straight game is a lot harder than when you’re at full strength. Hey, breaking news, right? But even before Cabal got sent off for his second yellow after coming on for Andrea Cambiaso to prevent him from getting sent off, things were starting to seriously teeter well before then. Juventus barely had an answer for Galatasaray in the second half while it was still 11-on-11, with the Bremer-sized hole in the Juve defense making things even the more of a delicate issue.
But once that red and yellow snowball at the RAMS Park started rolling, Juventus just couldn’t slow it down. Then Cabal, a player who has looked far from a certainty in all aspects of his game this season, got sent off and Galatasaray could sense that it was time to turn things up even more and take complete control of the game, the tie and send Juventus into what will likely be their final 90 minutes of European football this season next Wednesday in Turin.
There is no one player who is responsible for this. Cabal certainly played his part, and a big one at that. But this was a team that had the lead at halftime completely falling apart pretty much everywhere you looked. In one of the most hostile atmospheres that this team will see all season, they gave an absolutely raucous crowd plenty of reasons to celebrate and have a good laugh (or 10) at Juventus’ expense.
We all pretty much knew this would be a tough tie when the play-off round draw was first announced. But nobody in their wildest dreams could have cooked up what actually took place in Juve’s first visit back to RAMS Park since that infamous 2013 matchup that involved a horrible field and plenty of snow.
This time, though, a horrid Juve performance in Turkiye will be remembered simply for the final scoreline. I don’t want to remember any bit of it, but this one is going to be awfully hard to forget.
RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS
A 3-0 loss to Atalanta in the Coppa Italia.A 2-2 draw with a Lazio side that nearly smashed-and-grabbed their way to a win.A 3-2 loss to Inter in the Derby d’Italia, although with very obvious caveats attached to it.Now an embarrassing 5-2 loss to Galatasaray to give themselves virtually no chance of making it into the Champions League Round of 16.That’s 13 goals allowed in the last four games. That’s not good at all, folks.Something about a guy named Juan from Colombia coming off the bench in a Champions League fixture and then getting two yellows in the second half and being sent off. Not the first time. Hopefully it’s the last for a long time.The complete irony of Cabal getting sent off is that he was introduced for the exact reason Spalletti was trying to avoid. Cambiaso was being exposed (again) defensively, was on a yellow and got the hook because of it. All Cabal had to avoid was the one thing Spalletti didn’t want to see happen with Cambiaso … and he went and got sent off within 22 minutes of coming on. You sometimes can’t make this stuff up.Juventus finished with 1.13 xG. As you can imagine, just about all of that came in the first half.Galatasaray had 2.12 xG — in the second half alone. And on just nine shots, too. Amazing.Four of Gala’s nine second-half shots were considered Big Changes. Seems bad.I won’t rip Michele Di Gregorio like some will (and are) for allowing some of those goals, but man it’s a tough spot to be in when this defense feels like it’s living on a cliff’s edge and a goalkeeper is not always appearing to be that safety net. He made some really nice saves, but there still feels like there needs to be more from him some of the time.That being said, the defense in from of Di Gregorio was just a complete mess before and after Bremer came off. Just a complete mess and there’s nothing more to say about that.Are we now seeing why Federico Gatti isn’t playing much these days? As much as you can say he’s potentially working his way back from physical issues, it’s not like he’s been all that good — at all! — when he has played since coming back a few weeks back.Manuel Locatelli was immense against Inter over the weekend. The same cannot be said against Gala.Seriously, two goals from Koopmeiners. Two really nice goals. And they will be completely forgotten because of what happened after Juventus went ahead 2-1.I mean, that second Koopmeiners goal was like Atalanta Koopmeieners. That layoff from Weston McKennie was great, too. The finish was the cherry on top. It’s something we’ve basically been waiting 18 months for from Koopmeiners.Did any of the five players Spalletti brought off the bench inspire a ton of confidence? Because I’m not really feeling it.Juan Cabal is another Cristiano Giuntoli gift that keeps on giving. Grazie, grazie.Time to add another outing to the list where you’re just left wanting more from Chico Conceição on the right wing. Things just aren’t clicking much for him out wide these days.Dare I ask, but I’ll do it anyways: How many Juventus players making it into the starting lineup that Galatasaray rolled out on Tuesday? It’s not a lot — and that’s a big part of the problem.Kenan Yildiz’s first game in Turkiye for Juventus will always be associated with this result. That’s so sad for such a wonderful young man. He doesn’t deserve that.Juventus, however, deserved everything Gala gave them in this one. Pass the bourbon even if it’s a Tuesday and still very early in the day. There’s no way to forget about this no matter how much and how fast that you want to.