Nantes-Juve, Kean favorite, Vlahovic on the bench?

It was inevitable. Massimiliano Allegri says this is like a final. Trivial, but many think so, after the equal of the first leg. Juventus and its coach are hanging by a thread, and the recent balance doesn’t help: one victory in the last nine cup games. Nantes is waiting for nothing but nervousness and anxiety to repeat last week’s trick. Juve’s last trip abroad, before taking the Champions League in 1996, had this large stadium as its terminus, filled with the humid air of the Atlantic. It was the second leg of what is still the last Euro Cup lifted by the Bianconeri at the end of a tournament. However Juve lost, after beating the French in Turin and then Ajax in the final in Rome; the only precedent is remembered here as the symbol of the possible enterprise, omitting the sequel and linking last week’s match to hope. Antoine Kombouaré, the opposing coach, teases: a Juve exit would be ridiculous, a fool. The coach can afford this joke because for him it won’t be the inside or outside that will decide this season, for Allegri it will. And the outcome of this play-off will influence Juventus’ balance sheet for this year and the next, given that the possibility of reaching the Champions League from this event is also at stake. It is the loophole in the field against the decisions of the courts: but if everything collapses even in the field already at the end of February, the rubble will have to be removed immediately. Including the situation on the bench.

The attack

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The disposition on the pitch is not judged by the numbers but by the attitude, the coaches always say. But a four-star Juve, with Kostic together with Chiesa, Vlahovic and Di Maria, would have been a signal for the locker room and for the opponents. You can’t, because Chiesa has remained in Turin. And Vlahovic could start on the bench, to favor Kean who gives more depth. Allegri’s idea is that the Serbian could also come in handy during the match, because “we have to think that he will last 90 minutes and maybe even longer”.

Kostic is the reigning champion, in this cup won with Eintracht: among the many assists of last season he also has the one for the goal in the final in his data. His position could be more advanced, perhaps at times widening behind a defender, as with Chiesa in the first part of the first leg match. Kostic, a former striker at the time of Hamburg, remains an offensive weapon of respect, also to keep him more in contact with the strikers, without always resorting to long-range crosses, building a triangle of climbs and finishing in the goal area with Rabiot .

The attitude

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What can Allegri still do to avoid the fall? Having said that Nantes as a squad is not at the same height as the black and whites, it will be Juventus’ attitude that will determine the differences. If they want to pass, Juve must avoid dividing their game into many mini matches, each characterized by different behaviours: aggressive, conservative, speculative, angry. We are not talking about managing the match with common sense, knowing when to accelerate or brake, but about fears that suddenly appear and make the black and whites change their appearance. Blackouts also visible on Sunday in Spezia and which Nantes may not forgive. The coach will then also focus on Rabiot’s run to break the line, after having tried to make the yellow guards slide to the side. Kombuarè in Turin had spread a five-man defense that remained low and did not come out on the trocar, see the space left to Di Maria in the birth of the goal. Rabiot’s powerful step will serve to enfilade the opponent’s protection. The 1-1 draw doesn’t protect the hosts, the rules have changed: at a certain point, if the balance isn’t broken, they too will have to expose themselves.

All for one

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It’s an in or out night for many players as well. You will also see the trends of the locker room. Leaving would speed up the farewells: some are almost certain, see Alex Sandro, Cuadrado, Paredes, but also for Di Maria a season without the Champions League, knowing this since February, could cause him to return to Argentina, to close as he always wanted.

Everything about Di Maria is a reliable forecast: in the games that count, it is Fideo who takes responsibility for the difficult plays, who gives birth to the spark in the midst of so much competition. In France they know him, for his past at PSG and for the recent world final. And the pride of champions is always incalculable.

But it will also be up to the coach’s apostles, to those who should become the cornerstones of the new, more sustainable project, from Locatelli to Bremer, to demonstrate unity of purpose with the bench, so as not to have to start from scratch. In Nantes all of Juventus are without a goal today.