Max Allegri hints Angel Di Maria and Federico Chiesa could potentially even start against SC Freiburg, but pumps the brakes on ideas Juventus could win the Europa League. ‘Let’s reach the quarter-finals first.’
The first leg ended 1-0 thanks to a header from Angel Di Maria, giving the Bianconeri a slender but significant lead going into Germany.
The decider is on Thursday at 17.45 GMT at the Europa-Park Stadion.
Di Maria is in the squad along with Federico Chiesa, but both are major doubts to feature tomorrow evening.
“It is very unlikely they will be there from the start, as we only recovered them this morning, but they could be of use during the match,” said Allegri in his press conference.
“Dusan Vlahovic was very sad that he hasn’t scored recently, but is fine physically. I am relaxed and certain that he’ll soon be back on the scoresheet. I will evaluate Chiesa and Di Maria tomorrow morning and from there I can make my decision on the starting line-up.
“Unfortunately, Di Maria had this injury after the first leg with Freiburg and had to miss quite a few training sessions. The test went well today, that doesn’t mean he has a lot of minutes in his legs, but there is the risk we could lose him for 40 days, seeing as that is what happened in September. Tomorrow is important, but we also have many more matches to play this season.”
Allegri also expects changes in the approach from SC Freiburg tomorrow evening, not just because they are on home turf.
“We want to score here, because just trying to defend for 0-0 is really not a good idea. Freiburg are good on set plays, we need to be very organised and concentrated for the full 100 minutes.”
Juventus dropped down to the Europa League after finishing third in their Champions League group and immediately became one of the favourites to take the trophy, especially as it would give them Champions League qualification for next season.
“We need to take it one step at a time. Let’s reach the quarter-finals first, then on Sunday evening there’s Juventus-Inter, which is always the Derby d’Italia. Progressing in the Europa League also means filling out the fixture list. We’ll enjoy ourselves more on the pitch, but have far fewer training sessions.”
Inter and Milan are already in the Champions League quarter-finals, could be joined by Napoli this evening, while Roma, Fiorentina and Juve won the first legs of their Europa and Conference League ties.
After years of criticism aimed at Italian football, is the tide turning?
“The trouble in Italy is there is no balance. We go from saying someone is a Ballon d’Or winner to a week later calling him a flop,” explains the coach.
“There are also difficulties outside of the pitch in Italy, the Premier League financially has a 5-1 advantage in that sense, we are economically weak in comparison.
“The fact we do get good results means we have good people working here, from coaches to directors. I hope all the Italians go through and then we’ll see what the draw says.”