Juventus knocked down Freiburg by the minimum in Turin, thanks to another great goal from his best man: Ángel Di María. The Bianconeri dominated the game without giving chances to their rivals, but they lacked the help of Vlahovic to finish off the job. The performance of the Serbian begins to be a case in Italy.
Allegri gave the first surprise hours before the match, leaving Pogba out of the squad (which has not yet been released in international competitions) due to a delay in the concentration the day before. In midfield, then, they started with Rabiot and Miretti next to Locatelli, and the Vlahovic-Di María couple up front.
The French midfielder had the best chance of a start with enormous intensity from the bianconeri, who lost steam as the minutes passed. Streich’s 3-4-3 perfectly closed all the passing lanes and he devoted himself solely to defending (arriving at halftime with 0 shots attempted), managing to nullify the Bianconeri attacks. It took the play of a champion to unblock the clash, and then Di María appeared, as always in recent weeks.
At the start of the restart, the world champion elegantly headed home a perfect cross from Kostic, adding the fourth goal in three Europa League games, and the seventh since the start of 2023. Freiburg had an immediate and unexpected reaction with Holer, who, after a foul by Grifo, put the tables at the first touch in the area with a pass from Ginter. The center-back’s assist, however, was executed with his hands and the referee, summoned by VAR, inevitably had to cancel the goal.
After the scare Juve managed the pace smoothly, worrying more about the conditions of his own. Chiesa, who had substituted for Vlahovic at minute 67, suffered serious knee problems that forced him to play the final stretch of the match on foot (Allegri no longer had changes). Di María, for his part, finished the game by touching his thigh with a not very happy expression. The Argentine is the best of the Vecchia Signora these days: Allegri has to hope that it is just fatigue.
Changes
Leonardo Bonucci (22′, Alex Sandro), Nicolo Fagioli (45′, Fabio Miretti), Ritsu Doan (58′, Roland Sallai), yannik keitel (58′, Maximilian Eggestein), Frederick Chiesa (66′, Dusan Vlahovic), Manuel Gulde (67′, Philipp Lienhart), moise kean (77′, Philip Kostic), michael gregoritsch (87′, Lucas Holler)
cards
Referee: Anastasios Sidiropoulos
VAR Referee: Tomasz Kwiatkowski, Angelos Evangelou
Ginter (23′,Yellow) Lucas Holler (50′,Yellow) Bremer (71′,Yellow) bonucci (83′,Yellow)
