Juventus secured a 2-2 draw against Barcelona in their pre-season friendly in Dallas last night as both Ousmane Dembele and Moise Kean netted braces.
The Bianconeri are currently undergoing their usual pre-season US tour and their second friendly of the trip was a more difficult test than the first, a 2-0 win over Chivas last week. Star returnee Paul Pogba has been forced to withdraw from the tour due to a knee injury and so didn’t feature in yesterday’s friendly.
Allegri chose a fairly strong squad for yesterday’s friendly, starting Wojciech Szczesny in goal, with a defence made up of Danilo, Leonardo Bonucci, Gleison Bremer and Alex Sandro. Denis Zakaria, Nicolo Rovella and Manuel Locatelli started in the midfield, with Angel Di Maria, Juan Cuadrado helping support Moise Kean up front.
Barcelona started on the front foot and took the lead after 34 minutes, but it only took Juventus five minutes to respond. Barely a minute later, however, and Dembele restored the Blaugrana’s lead, leaving the Bianconeri a little overwhelmed.
Soon after the half time break, Kean restored things to equal footing after completing his brace, making things 2-2 after 51 minutes. This is how things stayed until the final whistle, giving both teams a good run-out ahead of the rapidly approaching season.
Allegri was happy with his team’s performance in the post-match press conference.
“We could’ve been more careful on the goals. Kean did very well, as did Zakaria, who is on the rise. Rovella played 90 minutes and it wasn’t easy for him.”
He spoke highly about new signing Angel Di Maria.
“He is an extraordinary player, a champion and a pleasure to watch him play. For us he was a great addition.”
Finally, Allegri reflected on the draw with Barcelona.
“We had a good training session, I’m happy with the work we’re doing and how the preparation is going.
“Be careful, Barcelona is back big time, they have built an important team to return to winning ways. This draw is worth a lot.”
Future capocannoniere!
I didn’t watch it live, only watched extended highlights this morning. The grit and determination was there to be fair, but the usual holes in midfield are evident, Barca cut through us at will! The defending from the full backs was also atrocious! Dembele made easy work of Sandro! When are Juve going to address this problem!
Kean will disappear the entire season. Worthless at best.
@Rosario you obviously didn’t watch the whole game so.
just watched the highlights, as barca should have won , at least 5-2 – alex sandro showed us why he needs to be sold – slow cant defend – cant attack or even put a decent cross in hs no stamina – could have bought tyrell malacia from feyenood for 17m euros – but man utd got him
@Mohammed I watched the game and Barca did dominate the first 8 min of the first half and then Juve had some great chances. The game could have gone either way. The players that Impressed the most were Bremer, Locatelli, Di Maria and Kean. I don’t like to judge players based on friendlies, but if those guys can play in competitive matches, then we got a really exciting team this year. I doubt Kean will get many minutes, but the rest i mentioned looked very solid.