For all of the concentration on the live table on the final day of the Champions League league phase, it’s not like Juventus contributed a whole heck of a lot to add to the potential madness that comes with all 36 teams playing at once.
There was plenty of craziness elsewhere across the Champions League spectrum. But in the Principality, though? Nope, not at all. Especially after Mattia Perin gave us all a massive scare all of a few seconds after the opening kickoff.
But, in all honesty, that proved to be the best scoring chance of the night for either Juventus or Monaco. In what proved to be a testy and nervy but ultimately scoreless encounter between two clubs who hadn’t played in a decade, the Bianconeri only managed a point in the league phase finale. As others moved around them all throughout the table, Juve’s fourth draw on the round meant that they moved up from 15th to 13th and nothing more than that.
So now, after a pretty uneventful final day of the league phase from Juventus’ point of view, we know who Luciano Spalletti’s squad will have as their two options to potentially face going into Friday’s play-off round draw: Galatasaray or Club Brugge.
Go ahead and take your pick because there’s going to be a lot of back and forth about who you’d rather face over the course of the next 36 hours or so.
But when it comes to what happened — or didn’t — against Monaco on Wednesday night, it’s pretty easy to see that this was one of the least effective games in the final third since Spalletti took over for Igor Tudor on the cusp of November. Was that by design? Was it because the squad is tired? Was it because Monaco ended up playing the better game even though their Champions League status was basically hanging on by a thread for much of the night?
It’s not like Spalletti’s second-half subs suggested that he wasn’t totally interested in just shutting up shop and letting the scoreless draw be the only resulted he cared about. There was a chance, although it felt somewhat brief, that Juventus could have jumped into the top eight if they had taken a 1-0 lead and held on for the win. That pretty much went away once our old buddy Antonio Conte saw Chelsea storm back and claim a 3-2 win in Naples, dumping Napoli out of the Champions League as a result. But those same second-half subs — even our beloved Kenan Yildiz — did little to truly change the tide after an unimpressive first half from an attacking point of view.
Juventus, after 90 minutes against a Monaco side that was playing with a makeshift defense due to a host of injuries, finished with exactly zero shots on goal. Even with those second-half subs, Juve didn’t even attempted a shot in the second half until Edon Zhegrova’s hopeful 93rd-minute effort went well over the crossbar.
It was not one you would say is something that Spalletti will look at and hope his team will replicate going forward. It was a quiet showing in attack if there ever was one, with Juve recording a paltry 0.17 xG on all of five shots total against Monaco.
For comparison’s sake, Perin — ya know, after the scary pass in the opening minute — made five saves on the night.
So instead of closing the UCL league phase with a bang, Juventus pretty much did the opposite of that. They didn’t lose, but they certainly didn’t throw a host of bodies forward and create wave after wave of scoring chances against said short-handed Monaco defense. The result didn’t hurt Juventus per se, but it’s not like it helped them a bunch, either. They basically just moved up one four-team pod for Friday’s draw — which feels like one of the few positives to take out of this performance.
But hey, at least it’s not the total disaster of a performance that we saw from Juventus against Benfica in the league phase finale 12 months ago.
Or maybe we shouldn’t mention Benfica right now because their goalkeeper scored more goals on Wednesday than Juventus’ entire team. I don’t know. You can decide where you want to go with that one, my friends.
* I wonder, no matter what Spalletti said during his pre-match press conference, this was more a choice of trying not to screw things up and majorly impact their current standing rather than doing something stupid when pushing for the win and having Monaco beat you that way. Juve needed a lot to go right to get into the top eight, and that proved pretty tough with what was happening in front of them. So, just try and prevent something stupid from happening and take the draw. No real harm done there, I guess.
* Whoever it was that was in charge of setting up the sideline mic between the two managers for the world feed that Paramount+ here in the U.S. uses, salute to them. We were getting about as clear of a sound of the Spalletti Experience on the sidelines as we have all season. It was quite enjoyable.
* It’s too bad that, no matter how much I love Spalletti, this was one of the most exciting things to come out of this one. Because, well, that’s just what happens when the team he manages doesn’t record a shot on goal.
* One shot in the second half. One! That’s not good.
* You know what’s also not good? I am going to drop a stat on your head that you might be stunned to hear. You ready for it? Here we go, my friends …
* In his last 30 games for Juventus, Teun Koopmeiners has zero goals and zero assists. Nada. Zilch. That’s it.
* Yes, I am glad that Manuel Locatelli got some much-needed rest. However, I feel like Locatelli could have certainly brought a little bit of calm and effectiveness to this game considering some of the sloppy passing we saw out of the midfield against Monaco.
* Then again, Koopmeiners was the only Juve player to finish with a pass success rate above 90%, so what do _I_ know, right?
* I sure would like Mattia Perin to never play an attempted pass like he did on his first pass attempt in this game ever again. That is very much Perin looking like me when it comes to the ball at his feet.
* Remember when we used to have all those updates about Aleksandr Golovin maybe signing with Juiventus a few years back? [I certainly do.](/2018/6/20/17480406/aleksandr-golovin-russia-gypt-2018-world-cup-cska-moscow-juventus) Thanks for the reminder that he’s still enjoying life in Monaco.
* It’s Denis Zakaria! It’s like we’re getting a little reunion of sorts. Although the biggest of the former Juventus players — to really the surprise of nobody these days — wasn’t on the field.
* That same Denis Zakaria that was dropping into the middle of Monaco’s back three because they had so many players out injured. And yet, Juventus could barely muster any sort of consistent offense the entire night. Ah well.
* I’m guessing I’m not the only one who saw Andrea Cambiaso coming on with 15 minutes to go and had the thought of “Don’t do anything stupid and give up a goal” pop into their head. Or something like that. I’m sure with how Cambiaso has played over the last 12 months there’s been plenty of variations of that thought from many of us here.
* Some of those passes Juve players attempted, completely failed at getting to a teammate and then saw it go right to a Monaco player … not great, man.
* As much as I’m starting to think that Jonathan David is getting better and working out his early-season funk, I am very much not thinking that same thing about Loïs Openda. It’s been a struggle, man. The guy is just not playing well much of the time. That big performance against Roma seems like it was so long ago when it was basically six weeks ago. Not how you want to be trending as a striker.
* Juventus didn’t record a single corner kick against Monaco.
* When Lloyd Kelly and Gleison Bremer are co-leaders in terms of key passes then that pretty much sums up how things were for your team in the final third, right?
* Another quiet night for Francisco Conceição. Not worried yet, but it’s not a great development.
* Spalletti delivered on his talk of rotating the squad. For the most part, they looked like a squad that was both tired and fielding some players who hadn’t played much lately. But it’s not like those players who hadn’t logged a lot of minutes in recent weeks played all that well. Maybe Perin outside of that absurd pass in the opening minute can be exempt from that? I think so.
* By the way, that keeper kit color that Perin sported was not one I knew Juve had in their rotation. That was nice.
* Edon, I want to like you so much, but we need to see more from you, my friend. Please. make it happen because you are somebody I want to see excel at this club so dang much.
* Monaco had four players with at least one shot on goal.
* Juventus, as a team, did not have a shot on goal.
* So maybe Bremer rests at the weekend? That sure would be a thing I would be in support of seeing happen.
* Prince Albert II was in the crowd in Monaco on Wednesday night. Guessing the fact that literal royalty was in the crowd would result in more than we saw. So much for that, my friends.