Westin’ away again in Margheritaville: McKennie at Juventus

The match is streaming free on Pluto TV.

 

Locatelli missing pk in the 86th!

Mamma mia!

 

That was a verrrrrry questionable pen. Justice on the end

 

That was a bummer. Leeds PK miss last week (I think. 2 weeks ago? What is time anyway) and then Juve today. The point keeps them safe from Roma for a week - at least in practical terms, I guess a 20 something goal route would catch them, but what a bummer.

 

.

Como is the biggest threat. They will likely go 3 points clear tomorrow morning when they play second to the bottom Pisa.

Roma will not be much of a threat for 4th. After losing to Como last week and knocked out to Bologna in Europa league Thursday, I think they will finish 6th. Como has a pretty favorable run to end the season. Their toughest match is Inter who may have the scudetto wrapped up already

 

Juventus-Sassuolo 1-1, pagelle e tabellino:
Conceicao e Yildiz non bastano, Muric e Pinamonti fermano Spalletti | Goal.com Italia

JUVENTUS (4-2-3-1): Perin 6; Kalulu 6.5, Bremer 5.5, Kelly 6, Cambiaso 5.5 (62' Miretti 6); Locatelli 5.5, Thuram 6 (62' Koopmeiners 6); Conceiçao 7 (87' Zhegrova sv), McKennie 6, Yildiz 6.5 (79' Milik sv); Boga 6 (79' Vlahovic sv)

Juventus-Sassuolo, le pagelle di CM: Bremer e Locatelli, che errori! Miracolo Grosso, Muric insuperabile | Calciomercato

 

The Italian journalists use verbiage that no one else uses. It's interesting.

 

I watched Como dismantle Pisa this morning.




They have a heck of a team.

 

For sure, I wish it wasn't at the expense of Juve possibly missing out. I know there are a lot of people who hate what Como represent in Italy, but I like the idea of a new sister to make the league ultimately more entertaining and enjoyable.

I'm not an azzurri fan but find it horrendous that there has only been 1' played by an italian all year at Como in the Serie A.

 

WTF. Who cares? Serie A is as international as all of the top leagues

 

It's sad because the lack of Italian players on top clubs in the Serie A, the Italian national team has suffered.

Italy has missed the last two World Cup tournaments and odds are, they are about to miss their third in a row.

From a club standpoint, most fans can care less about the national team.

My cousins in southern Italy, in Rome and up in Milan and Turin, only care about their clubs.

They lose sleep in Lazio, Roma, Milan Inter , Juve or Torino lose but don’t even watch national team games.

They may care if Italy goes far in a given Euro or WC tournament but that is about it.


It’s all about the clubs.

 

Sure, how many other teams in the top leagues have similar representation? Couple that with the tradition of Italy in the footballing world?

Stuff like this leads to stupid rule changes within the league that I don't want to see. Many fans of gli azzurri are already calling for harsher restrictions on foreign players on top of the 2 non-eu transfers per year because there is a possibility of missing out on a 3rd consecutive world cup.

I support Juventus and I don't want to see a rule introduced similar to the past where a certain amount of Italians must be on each roster or even starting just to prop up italian development.

 

Missed most of the game, from what I saw Weston wasn't really involved much, wasn't able to impact game. Of course same could be said of his team mates. A really shit tie that pretty much closes their UCL hopes unless a miracle happens. Sad that Weston won't be in UCL next year and one of the reasons I was open to him moving on.

 

Yeah, Weston was a bit quiet this match. He was a bit more active at the beginning but once he got moved to the left he barely saw the ball and when he did he looked to force things a bit.

 

When McKennie was in peak form this season, his teammates were using him and each other to advance and create space in the final third. Now it feels like a player like Yilldiz who always has a couple attempts to do it all himself, is tuning out McKennie and his teammates as options.

McKennie in peak form wasn’t just the goals, he was also making great passes and finding space.

 

Yildiz and Concaicao are dribble merchants only. Neither is really capable of picking their head up and finding a team mate consistently. The only guy that consistently wants to play quick passing with Weston is David, and yea, half those times David should just turn and shoot. Loca is sorta like a rich man's Bradley. He'll put in the dirty work, play some great through balls and switches, but isn't going to be dribbling down the park gobbling up attention -- so they play without an attacking midfield and attack down the flanks mostly. Weston at times is in that role but it's not really his thing either.

It's just a poorly designed team with major weaknesses for their ambitions.

 

Didn't catch the last match, but normally I don't have a ton of issues when Wes is paired with Yildiz on the left, because they tend to combine well. But he and Concaicao on the right side feels like oil and water.

 

The guy with 11g and 9a is a dribble merchant only? The 20 year old Yildiz does have his head down a little more than I would like, but this assessment seems very off. I get that this is Yanks Abroad so we have to default putting down the rest of the teams players to prop ours up, but this is too much.

Conceicao is absolutely a 1v1 dribble merchant as is Zhegrova. No notes there.

 

I would be quite happy if Musah the dribble merchant came close to those numbers.

 

Yildiz is really good

 

Yeah, it would most certainly be sad not to see one of football's historical titans not present in the WC.

What is a WC without Italy, Germany, Spain, France, etc.?

What happened to soccer in Italy?

Are young Italian boys no longer aspire to be world class footballer? Or are they no longer capable of competing against other foreigners? Has their skills and talents declined that significantly?

 

Did everyone else get better

 

Did they kick France and Germany out?

 

IMO, pretty much. If there are 4 "giants of Europe" I'd argue that Italy and Germany have been trading the bottom spot for the last 2 decades, and I'm open to the argument that Italy has more recently been replaced by Croatia.

But also... Italy won the Euros in 2021, they've been 3rd place in 2/4 iterations of UEFA Nations League, their u20 team was the u20 WC runner up in 2023, their u19 teams were u19 Euro champions in 2023 and semi-finalists in 2024, and their u17 team place 3rd in last years u17 WC and won the 2024 u17 Euros.

Italy has been whiffing "The Big One" for a couple of cycles, but to act like their program is in some state of massive decline feels a little silly. They're still one of the most dominant European national teams at all levels.