Giorgio Chiellini warns Juventus can’t afford to take Dinamo Zagreb lightly, citing Roma’s Champions League campaign last season.
The Giallorossi went 3-0 down to BATE Borisov last year, eventually losing 3-2, and though they qualified from the group, the defender wants his teammates to heed the lessons.
“It reminds me a lot of last year’s Champions League, with BATE Borisov-Roma,” Chiellini cautioned in the pre-match Press conference.
Giorgio Chiellini warns Juventus can’t afford to take Dinamo Zagreb lightly, citing Roma’s Champions League campaign last season.
The Giallorossi went 3-0 down to BATE Borisov last year, eventually losing 3-2, and though they qualified from the group, the defender wants his teammates to heed the lessons.
“It reminds me a lot of last year’s Champions League, with BATE Borisov-Roma,” Chiellini cautioned in the pre-match Press conference.
“With all due respect, BATE are are well below Roma. They were then and they are now. These are difficult away games that, if you approach them in the right way, you can win and no-one remembers.
“If you approach them in the wrong way, they’re games where it can be as happened to Roma last year, and if you’re lucky you can draw at the end.
“You make things difficult for yourself, you expend enough energy for three games because chasing a game always takes more effort.
“Dinamo are definitely a technical and talented team. Everyone who, like me, who has a lot of experience knows that Champions League away games are always very difficult, so we expect this team which also has a lot of pace to cause us problems.
“We’re aware of that, but we definitely game here to win.
“I think this group is quite balanced, so it’s too early to be talking about a total needed to get through. We understand that after drawing at home [with Sevilla] it’s crucial to win.”
Medhi Benatia and Daniele Rugani are injured, could that see a switch to a back-four tomorrow?
“We’ve had the good fortune to be able to rest everyone over this period. There are two games to go until the international break, so it’s not something that there should be a lot of alarmism about, after the break almost everyone will be back.
“We’re open to anything, I saw on Saturday that this team can play with three, four or five. The numbers don’t count for much, in football it’s all relative. What counts is who is interpreting the roles.”
Finally, the centre-back was asked about criticism of the Old Lady’s approach so far this season.
“The team has to be more concrete, but that doesn’t mean neglecting beauty,” Chiellini explained.
“The result is always important, but in the short-term you can even play some worse games because there will always be those periods.
“In the long-term though, you have to improve in the games, but also in training every day, and that’s what leads to results in the end. We’re working in that direction.
“The most important thing though is that the squad brings the result home. That doesn’t mean we want to play badly and that we only care about the result though, the result comes as a function of your play in the long-term.”