Max Allegri was in no mood to celebrate after Juventus secured their Europa League quarter-final place with a 2-0 win away to Freiburg. ‘The second half performance was not good enough.’
The Bianconeri had a 1-0 lead from the first leg with an Angel Di Maria header and consolidated that in Germany when Dusan Vlahovic converted a penalty.
In that same incident, Freiburg went down to 10 men, as Manuel Gulde was already on a yellow card when he charged down Federico Gatti’s shot with a raised arm.
Federico Chiesa came off the bench and made an immediate impact, seeing one strike deflected onto the crossbar by the goalkeeper and netting the second in stoppages.
“It was important to get through to the next round, we did well in the first half, but need to improve when we are leading and have an extra man,” a clearly irritated Allegri told Sky Sport Italia.
“We have to make better choices when we are on the ball. We lowered our intensity and concentration levels, making life difficult for ourselves. Whether they had 10 men or 11, it shouldn’t change anything.”
There was good news that both Vlahovic and Chiesa ended their goal droughts, especially as the Serbian had an earlier chance disallowed by VAR for offside.
“I am pleased for the psychological aspect of the goal, but again we need to improve on that second half performance. We cannot make mistakes like that on the choices and the passing channels. It’s just not good enough.
“There were two or three situations, then the icing on the cake was Wojciech Szczesny’s long ball for Moise Kean. These are situations we need to improve, but it also depends on the characteristics of our strikers. Aside from Di Maria, they are all basically counter-attacking specialists.”
It was also announced today that Juventus will have their appeal verdict against the 15-point Serie A penalty on April 19, finally giving them certainty over what their ambitions will be for this season.
Without that penalty, the Old Lady would be clear in second place right now.