Struggling Against The English

Juventus came home empty handed again today, reminiscent of last year’s ill-fated trip to Liverpool. In fact, Juventus hasn’t won on English soil since ‘96/97 when they upended Manchester United. Inter were utterly thrashed by Arsenal in the San Siro in 2003, despite winning the first leg handily at Highbury. And last year’s final between AC Milan and Liverpool? We’ll let’s not even go there. The Italian sides are struggling against the English at the club level, there are no two ways about it.

I think a lot of the problems are similar to what we see pop up occasionally for the Azzurri. Namely, pace and trying to play ‘catch up’. The Juventus defense seemed to flat footed all afternoon, and the midfield was outclassed. They just don’t seem thrilled to ratchet up the intensity and the speed, trying to rely on controlling the ball by knocking off the offensive player or slowing the game down to a crawl. As for intensity-a perfect example -they were lucky not to go down 1-0 on Henry’s “surprise” quick free kick. Eventually the goal that Arsenal deserved came, and there was little hope that Juventus could mount a comeback with no Del Piero and no Nedved.

Without the services of Camoranesi or Viera in the return leg, I see little hope of the result being flipped around. Despite Arsenal’s penchant for pushing forward, Juventus won’t play the counter-attack and they will struggle to control the midfield. They’ll need a good bit of that old Turin magic to see them through.