Andrea Pirlo sees Juventus’ performance as a setback
The new Juventus coach, Andrea Pirlo, considers his players to experience a decline in performance when they were held to a draw by AS Roma in the Italian Serie A continued earlier today (28/09).
As is known, Juventus did face AS Roma at the Stadio Olimpico.
The defending champion fell behind first through Jordan Veretout’s goal in the 31st minute. Fortunately, Juventus was able to respond with a goal scored by Cristiano Ronaldo in the 44th minute.
But, ahead of the break, Veretout brought the hosts back to lead the match.
At the start of the second half, the visitors tried to get up, their efforts also paid off in the 49th minute with another goal scored by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Juventus had played with only 10 people after Adrien Rabiot received a second yellow card in the 62nd minute. Luckily, the score was just as strong as 2-2 until the long whistle sounded.
But apart from the fact that his team played with only 10 people, coach Andrea Pirlo saw the players’ performance seemed to have decreased compared to the previous match (Against Sampdoria).
“This is a step back in terms of performance,” Andrea Pirlo told Sky Sports quoted by Football Italia.
However, Pirlo is quite familiar with this considering the players do not have sufficient preparation to face the new season campaign.
“But this is a work in progress and we haven’t had the opportunity to play a pre-season friendly to test these things,” added Pirlo.
In addition, there are several players who have also not played for a long time, including the new midfielder Arthur Melo.
“While we have some players like Arthur who haven’t really played for six months,” he said.
Furthermore, Pirlo also acknowledged the influence of tactics in the results of the match. AS Roma played not according to its prediction, so the Bianconneri was quite a hassle.
“We know Roma will attack in large numbers, but it is not going as we expected. It will always be difficult against an organized team,” explained Pirlo.
Next, Juventus will face an equally tough opponent, Napoli.