By Ahmed Walid
When a manager turns a match around in the second half, the logical question to ask is: what did they change at half-time?
That was the first question Juventus’ head coach, Thiago Motta, was posed on television last night after his side changed the tide against Inter to earn a 1-0 Serie A home win.
“The first half was difficult against a very strong opponent, but I felt we showed them too much respect, allowed them too much time on the ball,” Motta told broadcaster DAZN after the game. “We know they have a lot of quality and like to move around, but if you don’t press them, you will end up struggling. That is something we did much better in the second half.”
Then in the post-match press conference, Motta was asked again about his half-time message, and explained that he’d talked about “the usual things” alongside “small details”.
After Inter’s dominance in the first 45 minutes, it is normal to assume Juventus must have changed something because, after the break, Simone Inzaghi’s reigning Italian champions were shackled. Yet Motta was not bluffing. It was tweaking the minor details that nullified Inter and brought his side back into the game.
During a first half where Inter created multiple chances, they were able to find Lautaro Martinez and Mehdi Taremi comfortably between the lines because Juventus’ centre-backs, Federico Gatti and Renato Veiga, were either late to the action or in the wrong positions.
The domino effect from that was to make it harder for Khephren Thuram, Teun Koopmeiners and Weston McKennie to press Inter’s midfield three because Martinez or Taremi would make it a four-versus-three situation in the centre of the pitch.
Here, McKennie and Koopmeiners are marking Hakan Calhanoglu and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, but Thuram is unable to commit to closing down Nicolo Barella because of Taremi’s positioning. He is left in a two-versus-one situation, which allows Francesco Acerbi to find his centre-forward before Inter progress the ball further up the pitch.
The link-up play of Taremi and Martinez was vital to Inter’s attacks and the late reactions of Juventus’ centre-backs handed the visitors the initiative.
In this example, Alessandro Bastoni finds Martinez behind the hosts’ midfield…
… and Gatti does not move up in time, allowing the centre-forward to play the ball into the path of the advancing Mkhitaryan with Juventus’ centre-back out of position.
Mkhitaryan then plays the ball to Taremi, who switches it to Barella, and within a couple of passes Inter manage to penetrate Juventus’ defensive block.
Barella then fluffs his shot, but the ball falls to Taremi, whose overhead kick is saved by Michele Di Gregorio before Denzel Dumfries misses a close-range header from the subsequent cross.
In this next example, Bastoni plays a direct ball to Martinez and, once again, Gatti isn’t in any position to close down the centre-forward, who chests it down into the space…
… but his shot misses the target.
The closest Inter came to scoring was also the result of this kind of move.
Goalkeeper Yann Sommer plays a long ball towards Dumfries, while Taremi is unmarked in the centre circle.
Veiga’s peculiar positioning away from Taremi allows Dumfries to find the centre-forward…
… and when the Chelsea loanee does decide to react, it is too late. Taremi heads the ball back to Dumfries, who is now attacking the space Veiga has vacated.
Dumfries carries the ball forward and shoots from a narrow angle, hitting the post.
After the half-time break, Gatti and Veiga changed their defensive approach and followed Inter’s centre-forwards when they dropped between the lines.
The aggression of Juventus’ centre-backs also helped their side’s pressing overall because it allowed Koopmeiners and Thuram to focus on Mkhitaryan and Barella, while McKennie and the front three dealt with Calhanoglu and Inter’s centre-backs.
As a result, Inter weren’t able to progress the ball as smoothly and, whenever they wanted to find their centre-forwards between the lines, Gatti and Veiga pounced.
Here, Acerbi tries to find Marcus Thuram — elder brother of Juventus’ Khephren — in the space behind Koopmeiners (the home side’s No 8), but Gatti is breathing down his neck and beats the French striker to the ball.
Apart from a couple of chances courtesy of Nicola Zalewski down the left wing, Inter could not break Juventus down during the second half, and Francisco Conceicao’s 74th-minute goal meant Motta’s side only needed to continue what they were doing to claim the three points.
In response to the 1-0 scoreline and Inter’s performance since the break, Inzaghi changed the team’s shape to 3-4-3 by introducing Joaquin Correa in place of Calhanoglu on 80 minutes. However, Juventus immediately reacted by moving to a situational back five with Khephren Thuram’s 77th-minute replacement, Manuel Locatelli, dropping into the defensive line to support Gatti and Veiga.
Juventus’ victory lifts them into the top four ahead of Lazio, who could only draw 2-2 at home to Napoli on Saturday, on goal difference — a lofty position Motta’s side have not enjoyed since their comeback to draw 4-4 at Inter in October.
The margins are tight at the top of Serie A and it’s the small details that will always make the difference.
(Top photo: Chris Ricco/Getty Images)
