The best of Juve, the worst of Fiorentina, and vice versa

The Venn Diagram of Fiorentina weaknesses and Juventus strengths inevitably resulted in a 1-0 away win, writes Susy Campanale.

The match that played out at the Stadio Franchi on Sunday evening was the apex of what both Fiorentina and Juventus bring to the pitch. If you had to draw up a Venn Diagram of the relative strengths and weaknesses of these two sides, it would look like the heat map of this game. With that in mind, it felt inevitable that it should end 1-0 to the Bianconeri.

It is amazing to think all the way back to August when pundits, players and fans were so enthusiastically declaring this would be a new Juventus, one that went on the attack, was more creative and gave freedom to its talented forwards. That was not so much a false dawn as a counterfeit one, lulling everyone into the trap of Allegriball.

One of the great ironies of the Italian language is that Allegri means ‘joyful,’ which is the opposite of what anyone will feel sitting through one of Max’s matches. This 1-0 win at the Stadio Franchi was probably his absolute favourite performance, one spent entirely under siege, defending 38 crosses into the box, barely ever bothering to get past the centre-circle in case his players got vertigo.

It is easy to sneer – and we all do – but Juve are still second in the Serie A table, only two points off leaders Inter. They continue to grind out results doing the bare minimum and once they do take the lead, they are extraordinarily difficult to break down. It is said that attack wins Cup competitions, defences win league titles, and six clean sheets in a row is a pretty solid foundation to build on. Whether they are capable of, or even remotely interested in, adding some decoration to that brick wall remains to be seen.

For all the groans about Juventus defending, the fact remains Fiorentina have lost three Serie A matches in a row without finding the net. It was most definitely not through want of trying, if anything it’s the opposite, as their performances reek of desperation. Their forwards fling themselves at the ball rather than try to steer it, they end up getting into the wrong positions or wandering offside because of their rush to get the finish.

When Nico Gonzalez does not score, Fiorentina probably won’t either. It cannot just be the fault of the forwards, because Vincenzo Italiano’s team have done this since he arrived, going through Arthur Cabral, Luka Jovic, Lucas Beltran and M’Bala Nzola, all of them put on a Viola jersey and are suddenly unable to hit a barn door. Let’s not even get into the ever-wasteful Christian Kouame and Jonathan Ikone, who are forwards in name alone.

You can look at the statistics of this match and say Juve were pinned back by 38 crosses into the box, or you can read it as Fiorentina being completely incapable of finding an alternative route to goal. They were literally banging their crosses against a brick wall and at no point considered maybe some quick passes to feet, where the likes of Bremer and Daniele Rugani would struggle.

It is understandable that they would pursue this, as after all the Viola’s greatest strength under Italiano has been their power in the air on crosses, but it becomes apparent there is no Plan B when that doesn’t work.

This team under Italiano is astoundingly frustrating, as they seem to do everything right except the finishing. That has been true of Fiorentina for years now, but it has never been more obvious than when pinning Juve back for 90 minutes with only a couple of real Wojciech Szczesny saves to show for it. There comes a point where it’s hard to tell where Juve’s strength begins and Fiorentina’s weakness ends.

Twitter: @SusyCampanale