Juventus centre-back Leonardo Bonucci spoke about how to defend against Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku, England midfielder Declan Rice’s mistake at the Euros and the many collapsed moves to Manchester City.
Bonucci, fresh from victory at the European Championship with Italy, prepares to face another English side in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Chelsea arrive at the Allianz Stadium and Bonucci spoke to The Athletic ahead of the big game in Turin.
Bonucci revealed a comment from West Ham midfielder Rice triggered the Azzurri and claimed it was the kind of mistake the Azzurri avoided to make during the competition.
“We didn’t pay much attention to it until the Spain game,” Bonucci says. “Then the anger inside of us began to mount. We wanted to show them that the final hadn’t already been decided.
“That they hadn’t already won. Hearing that song on repeat and the comment from Declan Rice saying England were 10 times more motivated to win than us… well, they’re the kind of mistakes young players make.
“You don’t say that. You should never say you want something more than somebody else or you’re better than somebody else.
“You should always put yourself on the same level as your opponent, keep a low profile and strike at the right moment.
“That’s what we did. We never said we were going to win, just that we were an inch away from going all the way and getting the right result.
“We were never presumptuous about it. We stayed humble and that’s what made the difference. We had a great team, a great coach and a great staff behind us. To give our country and ourselves that kind of joy was something truly special.”
When Chelsea arrive at the Allianz Stadium, Lukaku returns to Serie A only one month after leaving Inter.
The former Inter striker re-joined the Blues this summer and Bonucci, who has played against the Belgian both in domestic and international football, praised the 28-year-old.
Lukaku scored 64 goals in 95 competitive games with the Beneamata, but he has only won against Juventus once in six attempts and only scored in the 3-2 defeat in 2020-21 at the Allianz Stadium.
“Romelu Lukaku has proven himself to be a complete striker,” Bonucci says. “He can win games on his own.
“When you come up against him you have to be switched on for 100 minutes a game. Unfortunately for us defenders, we can’t disengage our brains even for 10 seconds because those 10 seconds might be lethal.
“You must never engage Lukaku in a physical battle or play touch-tight. Instead, be ready to drop off because when his team has the ball, he will try to run in behind.
“In the box, he’s great at playing man-to-man so you need to be on the front foot, try to read the game and play hard. If you let him take up a position and he gets ahead of you, you won’t be able to step out and anticipate what’s coming.”
The 34-year-old, capped 111 times by Italy, joined Juventus from Bari in July 2010, but the man from Viterbo has a history at Inter and Milan too.
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He joined Inter’s youth squad in 2005 and was loaned out to teams like Treviso and Pisa before joining Genoa on a €4m deal in July 2009.
One year later his worth had more than doubled and Bari picked him up for a reported €10m the following summer. Another year passed and Bonucci was brought to Juve for €15.5m.
Bonucci has since spent 10 of the next 11 seasons with Juventus, as he joined Milan in a controversial move ahead of 2017-18 but returned to Turin after only one season at San Siro.
However, the defender revealed he was close to joining Manchester City three times during the last decade and it was mainly because of his ‘dream’ of being trained by former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola.
“I had this dream of being coached by Pep,” Bonucci says. “The closest we came was in 2016. I was on the brink of joining City.
“We were down to the very last details then Juventus decided not to sell. We decided to stay together. Then when I went to AC Milan, I could have gone to City, but several things had to fall into place for it to happen.
“I’d also given my word to Milan. Last year, I spoke to Pep again. He wanted me but I told him: ‘Juventus is my home. I’m happy here. I feel at home here’.
“I wanted to make up the ground I lost by going to Milan for a season. Becoming a symbol of Juventus again is the most exciting thing I could be doing in my career right now.”