There was a point, sometime in the opening 15 minutes, where Juventus’ head-to-head showdown with Atalanta felt like it was a relatively even game.
But that feeling evaporated rather quickly. A penalty just before the half-hour mark put the visitors in front, and Juventus completely collapsed in the second half, conceding less than 60 seconds into the second half and making elementary mistakes that made Atalanta’s job incredibly easy. By the 77th minute, a comical mishap left the Bianconeri down 4-0. Even in garbage time, when Juventus finally managed to threaten the goal, they were thwarted by a pair of great saves and a timely block.
It was, simply, one of the worst performances Juve have put forward in a long time. A win would have meant jumping La Dea for third place, and keeping in touching distance of an unlikely participation in the title chase. And with all that on the line, they got absolutely thrashed on home turf, in a way that they hadn’t since 1967.
Now Juve have to pick up the pieces as the race for the top four once again becomes the top priority.
Thiago Motta was still dealing with depth issues coming into the match. Francisco Conceição, Douglas Luiz, Nicolò Savona, Jonas Rouhi, and Arek Milik, while Renato Veiga and Pierre Kalulu were only fit for the bench. The 4-2-3-1 was anchored by Michele Di Gregorio, with Timothy Weah, Federico Gatti, Lloyd Kelly, and Andrea Cambiaso stretched across the field in front of him. Khéphren Thuram and Manuel Locatelli made up the double pivot, while Kenan Yildiz, Weston McKennie, and Nico González supported Randal Kolo Muani in attack.
Gian Piero Gasperini had some selection issues of his own to deal with. Stefan Posch, Giorgio Scalvini, Odilon Kossounou, and Gianluca Scamacca were unavailable. Gasperini rolled out his trademark 3-4-3. Marco Carnesecchi played between the sticks, screened by Berat Djimsiti, Senad Kolasinac, and Isak Hien. Raoul Bellanova and Davide Zappacosta were deployed as wing-backs, bracketing Marten De Roon and Éderson in midfield. Juan Cuadrado returned to the Allianz for a second time, joining Mateo Retegui and Ademola Lookman in attack.
The two teams traded punches early. Lookman got behind the defense quickly but was spotted up perfectly by Thuram, who blocked the ball behind. The Frenchman nearly opened the scoring in astonishing fashion from outside the box, but pushed it just over the bar.
But Juve were showing a distinct lack of bite, and Atalanta started to gain control of the match. For long stretches, things were so uninspiring that the only sound that seemed to come out of the crowd were the deafening jeers that rained down on Cuadrado every time he touched the ball.
Worse than the lack of buildup, Juve were beginning to make elementary mistakes of the kind you would be dismayed to see from the Next Gen squad. Atalanta hadn’t been able to make them pay, but in the 27th minute made the breakthrough from the spot.
McKennie was the guilty party, having left his arm straight up in the air as he tried to go for a ball with Djimsiti, whose header bounced right off it, making Simone Sozza’s decision a fairly simple one. VAR did check to see if Lookman had handled the ball before Éderson had delivered it, as well as for any fouls on McKennie, but the call stood and Retegui stepped to the ball. He fired a hard and low shot to his left, getting enough power to put the ball past the hand of Di Gregorio, who had correctly guessed which way he was going.
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Juve had actually come into the game having not lost a game in Serie A in which they had conceded first, winning one and drawing three. But any ideas of an imminent comeback were suppressed by Juve’s growing list of mistakes. A lax pass out of the back gifted De Roon a shot from outside the area, but he couldn’t bend it inside the post.
In stoppage time, Atalanta were presented with three opportunities to double their lead, only to be foiled by a massive spurt from Di Gregorio. It started when Lookman muscled Yildiz off the ball and took off on a 4-on-2 counterattack, with Zappacosta quickly joining the run to make it five.
Lookman had Gatti and Kelly at his mercy, but Juventus got a break when he got selfish and went for goal himself. The shot deflected off Kelly and whacked into the post. De Roon was well-positioned for the rebound, but Di Gregorio being wrong-footed by the deflection turned into a godsend, and he was able to claw it away from the Dutchman, who ended up recycling the ball to Zappacosta, whose shot was then blocked into the path of Lookman, who was then denied point blank by Di Gregorio. It took all of 10 seconds from the moment Lookman had released his first shot. And Di Gregorio’s half wasn’t done — he had to get low to parry away another shot from Zappacosta after a corner.
We’ve seen Juve follow subpar first halves of football with much better performances this season. But the hopes for that were quashed quickly. A shockingly bad pass from Kelly was intercepted and worked to Lookman, who was again denied by Di Gregorio, but Kelly’s weak attempt at getting the rebound away from Retegui teed the ball up for De Roon, who had been left completely alone to drift to the penalty spot and drive the ball home, doubling the lead just 50 seconds into the second half.
McKennie tried to answer a few minutes later but hit a first-time shot a few feet wide. Not long after, Weah nearly gifted Atalanta their third goal, giving away to Lookman who scrambled into the box 1-on-1. Di Gregorio came out and diverted him just enough that Weah was able to recover and poke the ball into his keeper’s grateful hands.
When Motta dialed up a triple substitution in the 52nd minute, it was clear just how bad the depth problems had become: down 2-0, two of the players who went on were defenders.
It was all over in the 66th minute, when Kolasinac of all people came rocketing forward, taking a pass from Zappacosta to the byline before leaving it for him with a deft back-heel that the wing-back deposited the ball past a weak tackle from Kelly and into the far side of the goal.
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Even up 3-0, Atalanta kept ruthlessly attacking the Juventus goal, and it was painfully evident that Juve’s defenders were seeing ghosts, as the visitor came after them again and again and again. Things reached their nadir when Dusan Vlahovic, having just come on two minutes earlier, slipped on the wet pitch as he tried to deliver a simple pass and instead accidentally executed a perfect through ball the other way to Lookman, who charged downfield and drove home the final knife thanks to another deflection from Kelly.
Only then did Juventus finally perk up enough to bother Carnesecchi—but even then Murphy’s law was in full effect. After Vlahovic forced Carnesecchi’s first save in the 86th minute, the rebound fell to McKennie, who had an open goal in front of him but was stuffed by a block from newly-introduced sub Rafael Toloi. Two minutes later McKennie sent a beautiful header arrowing toward the bottom corner, only to be denied by a sprawling save.
Atalanta never let up, forcing Di Gregorio into one final save with the final kicks of the match before Sozza blew his whistle and put an end to the pummeling.
LE PAGELLE
MICHELE DI GREGORIO - 7. Seems like the only person who didn’t forget that there was a game on. This score would’ve been even more out of hand had it not been for his saves in the first half.
Juventus v Atalanta - Serie A Photo by Chris Ricco - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images
TIMOTHY WEAH - 5. Co-led the starters with three tackles, but gave the ball away multiple times in bad places and struggled against the dynamism of Lookman. His attacking play contributed little.
FEDERICO GATTI - 6. Of the outfield players, easily the one who was the most competent. Three tackles and three blocked shots, and generally solid all-around. Did it after some serious speculation earlier in the week that he’d miss out due to muscle fatigue.
LLOYD KELLY - 3. Kelly joins Adrien Rabiot and Leonardo Bonucci as the only players to ever receive a 3 in the Pagelle — and I seriously considered going lower and giving him the record. Each of Atalanta’s last three goals involved him doing something awful in some way. The second was the product such poor decision making in the passing game that it’s difficult to understand what on earth the man was seeing. He made a wimpy attempt to block Zappacosta’s shot on the third, and made the deflection that carried Lookman’s shot into the goal. I get that Juve needed a defender with a functional body they could afford, but Kelly is proving to be something of a blunder for the front office.
ANDREA CAMBIASO - 5. He looked tenacious out there, but it also looked like he had no idea where to direct that tenacity. Spent the game looking more and more frustrated trying to get things started, although he did have the best pass completion of anyone in the starting XI (93.8),
MANUEL LOCATELLI - 5. Couldn’t control the midfield against Éderson and De Roon. He’s had some highs this season, but he’s also had some real lows, and this was as bad as they come.
KHÉPHREN THURAM - 5. Came as close to scoring as the team came when it still mattered, and ran his tail off. But he was never able to get the ball into threatening situations, not even with any of those bombastic runs of his.
KENAN YILDIZ - 4.5. It was reported at the beginning of the weekend that Yildiz had been a doubt for the game because of a stomach virus. Having spent the last two weeks either being sick or caring for a sick wife and son, I can confirm that he definitely did not look 100 percent healthy out there. He didn’t even track back for tackles, which tends to be a hallmark of his game.
WESTON McKENNIE - 5. A subpar day for the American, who simply couldn’t get a passing game going. He did take more shots than anyone on the team, and was denied by a great save, but by that point it was too little too late.
NICO GONZÁLEZ - 4.5. This is the kind of stretch that had Tito and the guys at Viola Nation yanking out hair by the handful the last few years. When he’s on he’s great, when he’s not he can be really bad. Didn’t create anything at all, although he does get saved from an outright 4 because he’s being played on the wrong side.
RANDAL KOLO MUANI - 5.5. It’s hard to blame him here, cause he got absolutely no service. Nothing came into his area that was remotely dangerous. A chef can only be as good as his ingredients, and all he had on the counter was an empty mixing bowl.
SUBS
TEUN KOOPMEINERS - 5. What was he doing on the wing? Never had a chance to do any of the things he’s good at and was completely isolated during the second half.
SAMUEL MBANGULA - 5.5. Had more key passes than anyone else in a Juve shirt, and he only played for 38 minutes. Tried every trick but by the time he got a lot of time on the ball it was over.
ALBERTO COSTA - 5.5. Led the team with four tackles (in 37 minutes of game time!) but couldn’t push things offensively.
PIERRE KALULU - 6. A pair of tackles with a duo of interceptions as a chaser, and he completed every one of his passes. Dude needs to be starting again as soon as he’s healthy—preferably not in a situation where he’s trying to cover up Kelly’s deficiencies.
DUSAN VLAHOVIC - 4.5. I mean .... come on. That was one of the more comical fails we’ve seen at Juve since that infamous own-goal against Sassuolo. He did force a decent save out of Carnesecchi in garbage time though.
MANAGER ANALYSIS
There’s no way to sugarcoat things here. Thiago Motta got badly out-coached Sunday night. Gasperini’s ways may have inspired Motta’s approach to coaching, but in this one the master beat the hell out of the student.
Juventus have been seeing a lot of mistakes creep into their game of late. Elementary ones the likes of which they were likely expected to outgrow when they were academy players. It hasn’t hurt them badly until now, but Atalanta is far too good a team to allow the kind of chances those mistakes allowed.
Juventus v Atalanta - Serie A Photo by Image Photo Agency/Getty Images
How that’s happened, especially with nearly a week to prep, is a little mind-boggling. Perhaps some of the players crashed mentally after having to play so much only to finally have some time to actually rest their bodies. Whatever did happen, it needs to be arrested right away, because if it doesn’t Juve’s top four chances will be in serious jeopardy.
Other issues of a tactical nature cropped up as well. As mentioned above, González and Yildiz are being played on the side other than the one they’re most known for playing in, resulting in a reduce ability to cut inside and shoot, because they’re both working on their weaker foot. Throwing on Koopemeiners as a like-for-like swap for Yildiz on the right wing was puzzling, to say the least.
With 10 games left in the season, the mission for the top four is clear, and Motta needs to clear the players’ minds of this game and look to right things next week, lest we invite Lazio to pass us in the race and invite danger from behind like Fiorentina.
LOOKING AHEAD
Juve remain in fourth place, but Lazio will have the chance to pass them by again if they beat Udinese on Monday night.
Speaking of Fiorentina, they’re next on the schedule! A win in Florence will be vital in both maintaining their Champions League position, and keeping the Purple Rats from entering the race more fully from behind them.
After that, Juve host Genoa before moving on to Rome, where they play a Roma side that is hotter than almost anyone in the Big 5.