What happened to the coach who is able to make smart choices and improve the players? Allegri is no longer the man who led Juventus to the Champions League final twice.
Little hair on his head, few ideas on the pitch: Massimiliano Allegri spent a lot of time touching his forehead and neck against Benfica on Wednesday night without bringing out the best in his players. Only 34,015 spectators at the Allianz Stadium attended one of the worst matches in recent years.
In the second week of September, the Bianconeri are in an identity crisis. Allegri has always preached to the media that he only wants to be judged on the results: with this algorithm, the judgment of his work would be catastrophic.
Massimiliano Allegri didn’t know how to turn the game in Juventus’ favor against Benfica
The attitude of Juventus is like that of Don Abbondio in Alessandro Manzoni’s novel ‘Promessi Sposi’: it is a fearful team that is afraid of its shadow, it hides its limits in order not to face reality.
Juventus is a team that has chosen Danilo as their charismatic leader, a regular player who has failed to upgrade to Real Madrid and Manchester City.
The feeling is that Juventus have squandered the wealth of charisma accumulated in 10 years by returning to a normal team. This side is worse than Maurizio Sarri and Andrea Pirlo’s, and Allegri doesn’t seem to have the courage and intuition to improve his season fortunes.
It is no longer possible to wait, it is no longer possible to hope to resolve things with caution. The feeling is that something has to be done to shake a team that is asleep and won’t wake up.
Juventus need an emotional shock to recover and Allegri, the man who yells at everyone for 90 minutes to keep calm, has to hand out coffee, not chamomile tea, to his players.
Allegri not making the most of Dusan Vlahovic, who arrived as a hot prospect in January
It’s hard to imagine an immobile club in the face of the destruction of the team’s season path and changing coaches could be the simplest and quickest solution to re-energize the squad.
Dusan Vlahovic urgently needs guidance and Allegri is not the right man to improve the Serbian striker’s talent.
The Bianconeri is scared, plays with fear and shyness and they offer no physical and mental resistance to any opponent.
The squandering of a technical and economic heritage like Vlahovic’s angers the club and the fans who cling to the hope that he can try to get them out of this very negative moment.
The team is not physically prepared
In difficult times, the Old Lady has no protagonists who can handle the game.
After 25 minutes it was as if the players had pulled the plug as Benfica ran at double speed from their opponents, who appeared to be playing without oxygen due to poor physical preparation.
Allegri observed paralyzed and anxious players and it seems the moment of shock has come to wake up this jumble of boys who have not understood what it means to play for Juventus.
Claudio Marchisio spoke to Amazon Prime about the team’s difficult physical moment: “I can’t think of a physical problem after 30 days of football in mid-September, but Benfica ran a lot more than Juventus and that worries me a lot. ‘
A clear analysis that shows that one of the biggest problems of the team has to do with the poor physical condition of the players trained by athletic coach Simone Folletti. Every game, Juventus have eliminated at least two players due to a muscle injury and this annoying situation has become a habit.
Juventus looked tired against Benfica and their physical condition has become a big problem
Allegri is a disaster
His famous phrase in front of the Sky Sports microphones after the criticism he received for Juventus’ lack of entertainment in 2018 became the perfect synthesis of his football: ‘To have fun there is the circus. I want to win, I always want to do it’.
After 14 months, Allegri has not yet found a suitable tactical system for the quality of the team and its players. 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2, he has tried all formations without ever striking a tactical balance.
Allegri is going through the worst period of his career as a Juventus coach and for the first time his side has lost two consecutive games.
Allegri has Bambi’s frightened eyes, he doesn’t know how to make decisions on his own and for the past few weeks he has been talking a lot more with Simone Padoin, his new collaborator, than with his deputy Marco Landucci.
Allegri has tried several formations but struggles to find a winning formula
His bench is starting to feel very shaky and the fear of not finishing the season as Juventus manager is real. There is no quality, the players seem to be playing hide and seek and struggle to communicate on the pitch.
Allegri is not listened to, he is not considered a guide by the players and he made a mistake replacing Arkadiusz Milik against Benfica, who has been suspended in the next game against Monza when the side needed a second striker.
The best Juventus player cannot always be Mattia Perin, a second goalkeeper who continues to work wonders without Wojciech Szczesny. An immediate turnaround is needed for Juventus to take the wins and return to the top of the standings.
Sacking Allegri would be a financial tragedy
The transition from a top team to a regular team has been completed and Juventus must rebuild the DNA of a winning club.
Allegri is much loved by former players like Patrice Evra, Mario Mandzukic and Andrea Barzagli, he has the esteem of Vlahovic and also the approval of Andrea Agnelli and John Elkann, but this does not interest the Juventus fans who are terrified of the possibility of all out of a game in September.
The main problem delaying Allegri’s resignation is purely economic. Juventus chairman Agnelli had the coach sign a four-year contract expiring in 2025 for £6.1million a year plus £1.7million in bonuses.
This is too much for the club to easily get rid of its technician who has admitted fear of being fired in front of Sky Sports’ microphones.
Andrea Agnelli handed Allegri a lucrative contract, so firing him would be a financial blow
Di Maria asks Milik: ‘Why did he replace you?’
The Amazon Prime cameras revealed a surreal dialogue: Angel di Maria approached Milik at the end of Wednesday’s match and asked him ‘Why did he replace you?’
The Polish attacker, who scored a beautiful goal at the start of the match, did not react and looked desolate.
From these small clues comes the evidence of a relationship problem between the coach and the team. Allegri constantly offers the feeling of having lost the ability to manage the players and the moments of each match.
Angel di Maria was confused by Allegri’s decision to replace Arkadiusz Milik on Wednesday
Why is Allegri hated?
Allegri seems to be the protagonist of an Oscar-winning film Roberto Benigni: he is theatrical, he does cabaret in the press room, he is always smiling and jokes about journalists and former colleagues who are not nice to him, but his Juventus drops further and further away to new lows.
This quality was heavily criticized by Fabio Capello who said from the Sky Sports television studios after the poor game against Fiorentina earlier this month: “Allegri makes too many comic jokes and needs to find the time to train the team better and solve the problems.” ‘ .
The way he does it stirs controversy and jealousy and for this reason he has always been held hostage by excessive criticism which seems to harm Juventus and not him. He is not entirely to blame, but 50 percent of the responsibility for this sporting disaster rests with him alone.
Allegri’s coaching style has been criticized by former England and Juventus boss Fabio Capello
This summary would be enough to make it clear that Allegri has never been and never will be a simple coach on the bench.
Allegri loves casino games and loves to win and bet on horse racing. He loves beautiful women and luxury boats, and was engaged to one of the best women in Italian cinema in Ambra Angiolini, whom he divorced before a new love affair with a high-income Swiss woman.
He loves wine and dolce vita and is considered unfit to be the coach the fans want: he seems too disconnected from reality and unable to take any serious interest in the team’s events.
Allegri likes to joke but needs to understand the gravity of Juventus’ situation
Juventus has no attacking philosophy. They never shoot for goal and their caution on the pitch is terrifying: these are the main critiques of the Tuscan coach who stands on the podium of the most criticized coaches in the history of Italian football.
Above all, Allegri is unpleasant for the fans because he is a very intelligent, proud man, and he never manages to admit his mistakes.
His poisonous comedic jokes make the audience nervous and this aspect causes a lot of inconvenience, especially for fans who don’t understand the irony of his comments.