Personally, I am always a fan of Jose Mourinho coming to Turin looking to cause trouble and then, subsequently, leaving the Juventus Stadium with of those classic pouty faces that he is very much known for.
After 95 minutes on Wednesday night, Mourinho had that kind of facial expression as he walked back down the tunnel.
With Juventus’ strong second-half performance that included goals from Khephren Thuram and Weston McKennie within 10 minutes of each other, the Bianconeri were able to right the wrongs of a tough opening 45 minutes and claim an incredibly valuable 2-0 win over Mourinho’s Benfica. It’s a win that mathematically secured Juventus a spot in the play-off round, with the small hopes of pushing for a spot in the top eight still there as they head into next week’s Champions League league phase finale against Monaco in the Principality.
I mean, there’s a lot that will have to go their way next Wednesday night, but there’s still a chance of it. That’s because there’s only one point separating Juventus in 15th place and Chelsea in eighth. Although, the obvious hurdle is the simple fact of there being six teams — including Atalanta and Inter Milan — in between where Juventus currently sit thanks to their win over Benfica.
So you’re saying there’s a chance? I dunno! Maybe!
But if Benfica can miss a penalty that poorly and do it in hilarious kind of fashion, then maybe we can think that good things can continue to happen as long as Juventus take care of business in Monaco.
Either way, I feel like it’s pretty safe to say that Juventus manager Luciano Spalletti was able to right some of the wrongs as his team came out for the second half. The first one being bringing Francisco Conceição on right out of the break, giving Juve a much more consistent threat down the right wing. That allowed McKennie to shift to a role where he was able to play off Jonathan David much more than when he was out wide to star the game. And what do you know? Both of Juve’s goal resulted in some nice interplay between David and both Thuram and McKennie, giving Juventus a lead just as it looked like Benfica might be starting to kick into gear.
Just like that, though, two goals in less than 10 minutes changed all that.
Considering Benfica’s European situation entering Wednesday night’s game — they needed to win to have any shot of controlling their own destiny in their UCL league phase finale next week against Real Madrid — it was always going to be a tight kind of matchup. We knew Juve were coming off a performance over the weekend in which they were frustrated both with the result and the overall showing in Sardinia. They had to be better as the Champions League came back in the fold knowing full well that a win would put them in a nice position in the table entering the final day of the league phase.
Through a good — not great — showing against Benfica, Juventus got the job done. They started out a huge three-game stretch domestically and in Europe with three vital points. That is something we weren’t saying before Spalletti arrived. And now? Well, it’s going better than how it was when the Champions League campaign first got underway. (Yes, even with the loss to Cagliari over the weekend.)
Now they just need to keep it going rather than another slip-up like we saw a few days earlier.
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