Spalletti: ‘Juventus must relish difficult moments and test themselves’

Luciano Spalletti urges Juventus to ‘live within pressure, relish testing yourself to see if you can handle difficult situations’ after their fightback for a 2-2 draw with Lazio.

The Bianconeri were coming off a 3-0 Coppa Italia quarter-final defeat to Atalanta midweek where they had more possession and chances, so were getting a sense of déjà vu here when trailing 2-0 to Pedro and Gustav Isaksen goals against the run of play.

However, Weston McKennie’s header and a last-gasp Pierre Kalulu finish from close range managed to claw their way back for a 2-2 draw with Lazio.

There were 33 shots from the Old Lady compared to just eight for Lazio, but curiously all season in Serie A they are also the team with the most errors leading to conceded goals.

Spalletti defends Juventus players after errors

“It is probably the fault of the demands we put upon these players,” Spalletti told DAZN Italia.

“In this period, I asked them to immediately play every ball that they win back, not to kick it away, so we must try to play our way out under pressure, and add more quality to our football.

“When you make that many requests, it means anticipating dangerous situations, seeing both the positive and negative potential of any scenario at the same time.

“Mistakes can happen, Locatelli has been one of our best players this season, so losing the ball once doesn’t ruin anything. Even after that, there was the way we defended, how we closed down the shot, the bad luck of the deflection. That’s football.

“What we must build on is the reaction of the team, the performance overall. When the tempo steps up and we are fighting back from two goals down, we mustn’t turn that up to the degree it’s frenetic. We need to speed things up, but not be chaotic, whereas again today we were a bit too frenetic in situations we could’ve developed better.

“Speeding up the tempo does not mean spilling over into chaos.”

Spalletti outlined his vision of the game further, insisting Juventus must learn to enjoy it when the going gets tough.

“We have to live within pressure, that is the joy of football, when you have to overturn a 2-0 result at the start of the second half, when it wasn’t what we had planned at all. That is when you test yourself and see if you can handle the tension at the top level, that is what we must relish, seeing if we deserve to be at this level or not.

“Character means when everything is going wrong and you need the clear head to make choices. That’s what makes the difference. This team overturned a very difficult situation, put in a great performance, so we go forward feeling reassured.”

There was an odd incident during the half-time break, as Francisco Conceicao was warming up and ready to come on when he felt a twinge, so instead Edon Zhegrova had to rush his preparations and come on.