Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri says it was “right” to exclude Leonardo Bonucci against Porto.
The centre-back was seen disrespecting the tactician on the pitch, and as a result he was sent to the stands for the Champions League Last 16 first leg.
“At that particular moment it was the right thing to do,” Allegri said in an interview with Sky.
“There are times when you should turn a blind eye and times when you have to have your eyes wide open and in that moment Leo was wrong.
Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri says it was “right” to exclude Leonardo Bonucci against Porto.
The centre-back was seen disrespecting the tactician on the pitch, and as a result he was sent to the stands for the Champions League Last 16 first leg.
“At that particular moment it was the right thing to do,” Allegri said in an interview with Sky.
“There are times when you should turn a blind eye and times when you have to have your eyes wide open and in that moment Leo was wrong.
“I was wrong too, and in fact I punished myself and Leo was left out. It was an important and decisive game and even if we’d lost we’d have had the strength to win 10 more.
“We played a good game against Porto and then after two days Bonucci came back, because he’s an important player, an extraordinary player and above all he has to understand that he’ll be the future leader of the Juventus dressing room.”
Allegri also returned to the subject of the Champions League final, which saw his side beaten 4-1 by Real Madrid in Cardiff.
“The 2-1 and 3-1 being so close together really affected us. After Ronaldo’s first goal we regrouped and kept pushing.
“It’s a game which will serve as a lesson for us, especially in terms of managing games.
“You can’t play the whole game at 100 miles an hour, and we couldn’t think of playing the second half in the same way as the first because we’d pushed a lot in the first half.
“So we need to have more mastery of the game and know the rhythms better.
“If I could go back? I’d have made two or three changes at the start of the second half, but that was impossible because when you play a final there’s always the prospect of extra time.
“[Miralem] Pjanic had a knee problem and [Mario] Mandzukic’s knee was swelling, so I sent them back onto the pitch hoping the match would go a certain way and we could handle them for 20 minutes.
“They were already on top in the last five minutes of the first half.
“For the first 40 minutes we’d stopped them, they were afraid of conceding and then in the second half they saw we were in more trouble and they pounced on us.”