Allegri press conference: the words of the Juventus coach on the eve of Inter Juve, valid for the 27th matchday of Serie A
(sent to Allianz Stadium) – The Juve he wants to close in the best possible way before the international break, tackling l’Inter Sunday at the San Siro. Bianconeri returning from the success in the league against Sampdoria and from qualifying for the quarter-finals Europa League.
On the vigil day, Saturday 18 March, Massimiliano Allegri he spoke at the press conference at 12.00 to present the match in front of the media. Juventusnews24 followed his words LIVE.
WHAT MATCH SHOULD JUVE PLAY – «We have to play a good game against a strong Inter. It’s always a wonderful match, there will be 70,000 spectators. It’s the Italian derby, it’ll be a fascinating game, you’ll need to be very good.”.
OF MARIA HOW IS – «Today there will be the last training session, the finishing up this afternoon, I’ll have to evaluate Di Maria’s conditions but he seems to be fine. I will also have to evaluate Miretti, Bonucci. Milik and Alex Sandro will not be available. Chiesa is available, he scored the other night so I’m very happy. The others who played on Thursday are all available”.
LOCATELLI – «I see it well. In Freiburg I took him off, there were 10 minutes left if I’m not mistaken, because the match was safe and I tried to save him some playing time. Locatelli is doing very well”.
BELIEVE IN THE CHAMPIONS COL -15 – «We must aim and try to do the maximum of what we can do. Now we have the last game tomorrow, as important and difficult as the one in Milan. Head-to-head matches are always difficult to play: this year we lost against Milan in Milan, in Naples and in Rome. We beat Lazio and Inter at home, drew with Roma, so you win two head-to-head matches, you lose two, you draw three. We are online on that. We are behind in the standings, it is difficult to catch up, we have to do our best. Tomorrow is an important match. From the point of view of the standings, I say it and I will repeat it between now and the end of the championship, the team in the field scored 53 points and we have to think about that. On April 19, when there will be the sentence we will see what will happen but we won’t have to work on that. Then we’ll have the Europa League and Coppa Italia to play, but let’s think about tomorrow night’s match. Then we will have to recover some energy and face April step by step, calmly, because we have good matches. It will be a beautiful and exciting month to live».
MARY-CHURCH RELAY – “Or maybe they’re both out. I don’t know, I see the training. Having Kean disqualified, Milik out, I have no changes up front. We have Soulé but he’s not a first striker. I only have Vlahovic as first strikers. I’ll have to evaluate today in training. The important thing is to play a fair match, it’s very important for us so we have to put in a good performance.”.
DRAW – «As far as we are concerned, Sporting is a good team, they have technique, they have enthusiasm, they are young and good. Then we will prepare ourselves as best we can when we have to face them. As far as the Champions League is concerned, balls are like this. Destiny wanted the Italians to have 75% to reach the final and this is a good sign for the Italian championship.”.
GATTI – «He has the fact that he is exuberant on his side, he has a lot of energy, he demonstrated it the other night too. You have to grow, and a lot, in terms of managing the game, but you played a good game the other night and tomorrow you might play again.”.
VLAHOVIC – «It’s not a question of Vlahovic, the team must do better than they did in the second half on Thursday evening. We played a bad second half. You have to be aware of going to play against a team that has 15 wins and 2 defeats in 17 home games. Tomorrow is an important test for us. They are strong physically, in high balls and arrive with enthusiasm after reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League. It will be a good match and, I repeat, very important for us.”.
DEFECTS THAT COME OUT – «We can and must improve in that phase of the match, especially in managing the ball and in the moments in which we need to accelerate and decrease, as well as passing choices. There is an important growth of the team. Now let’s think about closing these games with tomorrow night’s game, then when we return after the break (we need to recover energy, players who have played 16 games like Danilo, Rabiot, Bremer) we will have Milik, Alex Sandro, let’s see how Pogba is. Chiesa will have come forward conditionally, Bonucci will resume at full speed. We will have players who in the second half of the season, in April, will be important to have them all, especially those up front who give me the possibility, given that we will play a game every 3 days, to be able to turn them over and this will be very important. But let’s take it one step at a time very calmly”.
MOURINHO’S ATTACK ON JUVE – «This is UEFA’s format, Mourinho perhaps wanted to attack UEFA».
POGBA – «It’s been 8 months now that they’ve been asking themselves the same questions and the same refrain. When he’s doing well, as happened with Turin when everything seemed to be going well, he’ll be available. He will hardly be available immediately after the stop. It will take a little more time”.
CRITICISM OF ALLEGRI AND INZAGHI – “It’s not about defending or who’s right. In football, whoever wins is right. At the end of the year the sums will be drawn, an analysis will be made of what has gone and what hasn’t gone. It’s useless for me to say ‘This year for a long time we haven’t had this and that’. The positive aspect is that 5 young players played, 5 guys with less experience. I think this is a positive aspect. The season isn’t over yet, right now everything is good, then in 20 days it will be the opposite of what is being said now. Yesterday evening I heard stuff about the start of the season, now it’s quite the opposite. I’m speaking in general, not about Juve: you don’t reach the final, you stay out of the top 4, now that the whole season seems to be phenomenal… Until the end of the year, we can’t say if the season is good or not. The goal of a team, in this case Juventus, is to arrive at this moment to play every chance to reach the final of the Coppa Italia, the final of the Europa League and remain in the top 4. We have to defend second place because we have 53 points. Which are 3 more than Inter, 5 more than Milan, 4 more than Lazio, I think 6 more than Roma. Then what will happen off the pitch we don’t have to evaluate, we have to evaluate what we do on the pitch. At the moment we have scored 53 points on the pitch and we are 3 points ahead of Inter, 5 ahead of Milan, 4 ahead of Lazio and 6 points ahead of Roma. If at the end of the year the team, net of sanctions, is sixth in the standings or fifth in the standings, it will mean that the season will not have gone well. Right now we have to defend second place, which is the one on the field, then the rest doesn’t count. You may or may not like this.”.
