Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri shrugs “whoever leads Serie A on May 20 will deserve to win it” after Napoli went four points clear.
The Bianconeri’s clash with Atalanta was snowed off on Sunday evening, meaning Maurizio Sarri’s men extended their lead at the top when they thrashed Cagliari last night.
“I see that we have one game less, and that on Saturday in Rome we’ll play our sixth away match in eight games,” Allegri pointed out in his Press conference today.
Juventus Coach Massimiliano Allegri shrugs “whoever leads Serie A on May 20 will deserve to win it” after Napoli went four points clear.
The Bianconeri’s clash with Atalanta was snowed off on Sunday evening, meaning Maurizio Sarri’s men extended their lead at the top when they thrashed Cagliari last night.
“I see that we have one game less, and that on Saturday in Rome we’ll play our sixth away match in eight games,” Allegri pointed out in his Press conference today.
“We missed the match with Atalanta on Sunday, so after Saturday’s game there will be 12 games left for us, of which we have seven at home and five away, so it’s a good fixture list for us.
“That said, the league will come down to the last game. It will be a beautiful challenge, a beautiful championship between two teams that are fighting.
“It’s the only [top] League in Europe that’s still open because all the others are pretty much over, or close to being over.
“In the end whoever wins will be the best, whoever leads the league on May 20 will deserve to win it.
“We have the desire to win a seventh consecutive Scudetto, and above all to challenge a team which is doing great things.
“So for us it’s an important challenge, a beautiful challenge, but tomorrow we have the Coppa Italia and the Coppa Italia for us is an equal goal.
“First of all because in the modern era there has never been a team which has won the same competition four times in a row in terms of the national cup.
“This year we, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona have that chance. So tomorrow is important for us, it’s like a final and we have to treat it as such.
“Then we play on Saturday again and we have to turn our focus to Lazio. Tomorrow though we obviously have the objective of reaching the final.
“It won’t be easy, because we’ll be up against a tough Atalanta side who will want to rebuild after their Europa League exit and who, above all, have a great chance to reach the final of the Coppa Italia, which doesn’t happen every year.
“So it’ll be a nice challenge but we have to make sure we’re ready.
“The result from the first leg doesn’t count, because 1-0 is a scoreline which gives you few advantages.
“Tomorrow we have to score, and if we score we’ll have taken one step forward. But we have to score.”
Allegri also gave an injury update ahead of the match.
“The only one who could be recovered for the bench is [Gonzalo] Higuain, all the others are available.
“[Sami] Khedira will be available, [Juan] Cuadrado, [Mattia] De Sciglio and [Federico] Bernardeschi are still out.”
Napoli Coach Maurizio Sarri has been vocal in his complaints about playing after Juve, but now it’s the Bianconeri who will be playing catch-up, given they have a game in hand.
“We have to focus solely on what we have to do,” Allegri shrugged.
“For us it was important to get to March and still be in three competitions, and tomorrow we have the first in-or-out game, where we’ll either reach the final or go out of the competition.
“So that has to be an important objective for us to achieve, then we’ll dive into the league because after tomorrow we’ll either play the final in May or the Coppa Italia is over.
“We’ll return to the league on Saturday and then on Wednesday we’ll have another in-or-out match [against Tottenham Hotspur].
“It’s nice to remain in competitions, because we have the ambition to play in all competitions, that’s what Juventus is. Then what others think and tell us doesn’t change us.
“We need to keep our heads down, work and try to get results. We’ll try to be ready to take our chance tomorrow then in the league and the Champions League.
“To have our minds on other things would only expend mental energy and that serves no purpose.
“I always say and I’ll keep saying that in the end what matters is when you can write what was won in the history books, because otherwise we forget what happened two days before, never mind 20 years ago.
“You can say ‘in that game if it had hit the inside of the post and gone in, maybe we would have won’… it doesn’t matter at all, it doesn’t mean anything.
“You need to be very practical in life.”