Juventus director Fabio Paratici admits the performance against Benevento was ‘not up to our standards,’ but insists Andrea Pirlo and Cristiano Ronaldo remain part of their future strategy.
The Bianconeri’s Scudetto hopes were already thin, but they could’ve caught up to Milan in second this weekend, only for a shock 1-0 home defeat.
It was against relegation-threatened Benevento, who were without a victory in 11 rounds.
Juventus director Fabio Paratici admits the performance against Benevento was ‘not up to our standards,’ but insists Andrea Pirlo and Cristiano Ronaldo remain part of their future strategy.
The Bianconeri’s Scudetto hopes were already thin, but they could’ve caught up to Milan in second this weekend, only for a shock 1-0 home defeat.
It was against relegation-threatened Benevento, who were without a victory in 11 rounds.
“It was an unexpected game. I am here just to underline that over the years we gave the fans so much joy, unfortunately today we give them disappointment,” Paratici told Sky Sport Italia.
“It was a bad performance, but the campaign continues, we have to get our heads down, keep working, understand our mistakes and try not to repeat them.
“If you play at Juventus, you are accustomed to dealing with pressure. Unfortunately, we played a bad game. Sometimes you can’t even understand why these things happen.
“We had a bad day, that’s beyond doubt, and we have to get our heads down and keep working.”
Federico Chiesa wanted a penalty for a clumsy Daam Foulon challenge when it was 1-0.
“I am not here to discuss that. Incidents can affect your evaluation of a game. I didn’t see it again, it seemed a foul, but that’s not why I am here.”
Juve seemed utterly complacent from the start against a Benevento side without a win in 11 games.
“We could stay here for hours trying to figure out what was behind this negative performance. Now we’ll have two weeks to analyse it carefully, think of every element, but the fact remains the performance was not up to our standards and we are disappointed by that.”
Will this change the future strategy, for example Andrea Pirlo or Cristiano Ronaldo's situation?
“No. We have a project that we started from last season, one game will not change our views or our strategy. This line continues and we are very happy with what we’ve done, so we’ll continue working to improve.
“This is Juve, we have Cristiano Ronaldo, the best player in the world, and we’re holding on tight.”
Pirlo has far worse results than predecessors Maurizio Sarri and Max Allegri, who were fired.
“We were not unsatisfied with the previous coaches, but there were different reasons why we decided to change. Just as a defeat won’t change the project of a club, a victory won’t either. Once an approach has been decided on, we see it through.
“I don’t believe the word ‘transitional’ exists at Juventus. We play every game aiming to win, some go better than others, but transition isn’t an issue here. Every year is important, even when it doesn’t necessarily have the same results as in the past.
“If we are just talking about results, there are clubs who had seven, eight or 10 years of transition in which they didn’t win anything and didn’t really lay down any foundations either.
“People might not have realised because we kept winning, but we have already made numerous changes over the years, reduced the age of the squad several times to build future success.
“I can tell you seven or eight times we were told an era has ended, for example the defeat at Galatasaray, Conte’s departure, the Berlin Champions League Final, when we were 10 points off the lead at the start of last season, when we replaced Allegri with Sarri, etc, etc and yet we continued to win.
“When you are rebuilding, it can happen that you don’t also manage to win everything at the same time, but it’s part of the process.”