Pioli takes his revenge. Milan-Juve is the manifesto of Allegri’s confusion

Milan-Juventus had a history only until the balance, gradually more and more precarious, was broken, in the most unusual way for the Italian champions who had not scored on a corner for almost a year (Romagnoli in Milan-Sassuolo on 28 November 2021). In this sense, on the contrary, he recalled a long series of Milan-Juventus all the same dating back to the previous decade, both at San Siro and in Turin, with Milan starting strong and in some cases even going ahead, before giving themselves over to the overflowing and inevitable Juventus tide over the minutes. We remember at least three or four in photocopy, often even with the same score as yesterday: a Milan-Juve 0-2 of 2014 (Llorente-Tevez), a Milan-Juve 0-2 of 2017 (Higuain-Higuain), a Milan -Juve 1-2 of 2016 (Mandzukic-Pogba), one Juve-Milan 3-2 of 2013, etc.

That Juve steamroller was particularly relentless on Stefano Pioli, the prototype of the mid-table coach who had collected a long series of bitterness against Allegri, so much so that he never beat him nineteen times out of nineteen. The famous phrase of Vitas Gerulaitis pronounced at the retirement of Bjorn Borg, who had defeated him 16 times out of 16, came to mind: “Whoever beats Gerulaitis 17 times in a row has yet to be born!”. But yesterday’s 2-0 is far from the point of consolation, indeed it underlines in a striking way an override of the field, a change of hierarchies, the overtaking of a coach (and a football) focused on the future on a technician stubbornly turned to the past: the unavailable, the impossible returns, the Juve of the past who will never return. Sooner or later reality always presents the bill, and in this sense Milan-Juventus seemed like a football match between a team of today and a team of yesterday: how backward this Juventus is, above all culturally, we have written so many times , but such reviews act as an exclamation point.

So let’s review this match, which Milan begins to win when Pioli launches Pobega from the first minute in a hybrid position between midfield and frontline, according to a script experienced several times in the past: last year the tactical supremacy in the direct clash of Naples was revolved around the position of fake attacking midfielder of Kessié, a role then inherited by the flexible Krunic in the last few days when Maignan was almost not subjected to shots on goal. Once, in 2020 against Atalanta, Pioli even put Meité in that role (it ended 0-3). The meaning was clear: for physical strength, intensity and willingness to sacrifice, there was a need for someone who would split more wood than De Ketelaere.precious but still too thin for these temperatures.

Pobega fulfilled this function very well, as did Krunic who replaced him in the 58th minute, freeing a Brahim Diaz from any defensive task, enraptured by the starting shirt and doing well to De Ketelaere himself, much more lively in the final half hour than to the latest apparitions. At that point, however, Juventus had already “gone together”, to use a dairy expression referring to coagulated milk that has gone bad, dear to Gianni Brera and Beppe Viola, whose 40 years of untimely death occur in a few days. Allegri had intended to re-propose the cage attempt on Theo and Leao succeeded in January, with Danilo, Cuadrado and Locatelli all on the right, and the inadequate Kostic in vague support of the Vlahovic-Milik couple, with the Pole much more at ease on the banks and in the associative game with respect to the Serbian, a walking monument to the frustration made as a center forward to the point of becoming an assist-man on the contrary for Brahim Diaz.

As long as he had legs and breath, Juve was preferred, starting strong as he had done against Benfica: with the same timing, on time, the collapse arrived.. Cuadrado kicks to the side ignoring two free teammates at the spot. Milik pulls in the mouth of Tatarusanu, Danilo tries from 25 meters. Deprived of all the starting right wing and forced to look for oxygen on that side due to the density on the left, Milan takes a good half hour to figure it out, but then he too must be amazed at the ease with which his flood does not find. embankments. Having started very well, Rabiot is gradually obscured by Bennacer, while Locatelli, as often happens, leaves very few traces during construction. Leao enters the game; Cuadrado starts to trudge, is cautioned and is also unlucky in the contrast with Theo Hernandez on which Orsato ignores a solar fault even at normal speed. Tomori’s goal stifles Juve’s hopes of achieving a result, as happened ten years ago to Milan regularly punished by Tevez, Mandzukic and Pogba on duty.

Beyond the technical and athletic inferiority, what do those two teams have in common? The absence of temperament, a gift embodied by one or more leaders who are fully immersed in contemporary football, or less seasoned and more credible than Bonucci, a captain who does not enjoy unconditional trust even on the part of his coach. In alternating current Di Maria could be, acclaimed after the three assists at Maccabi, but it is still the same player who two games ago was foolishly expelled in Monza, driving the team into one of the many dead ends of the season.

At the end of the game, for once, Allegri seemed distraught, not at all talkative: he spoke with a faint voice, he attributed the defeat to repeated technical errors and therefore probably incurable especially in the middle of the field, where the Rabiot breakthrough is the true competitive projection , for better or for worse, of Joy. “We will have to get out of it by hook or by crook”, he syllable bewildered at the press conference, where a treacherous journalist accused him of the infamous sentence about Milan without five owners: obvious joke of Allegri’s confusion, because in addition to sounding annoyingly self-absolving for a company that had no problems opening its wallet in the summer, it even becomes a boomerang.

Speaking of injuries, there is a slightly disturbing detail in one of the Juventus catchphrases of the moment, the one that wants the fate of this season linked to the returns – imminent, almost imminent, always a little further on – of Federico Chiesa and Paul Pogba. Chiesa played his last game on January 9 Pogba, the one who should change pace and face in midfield, played his last full game on March 12 and there is also the risk that, in order to pursue the World Cup, he will force the timing of the recovery from knee injury. How, in what context, in what game system two players who have been stopped for over nine and seven months respectively can transform Juve with a snap of their fingers is not at all clear, and no one asks the directly concerned, perhaps so as not to ruin pitifully. illusions. When they return, they will have to shoulder the extra burden of turning on the light in a weakened team already prepared for a technical, tactical, physical and – what’s worse – sentimental winter.