Friday, 30 October 2020

Andrea Pirlo Admits Juventus’ Level of Play Still below Barcelona

By db-admin

DBasia.news – Juventus lost 0-2 to Barcelona in Turin in the second match of the Champions League group. Andrea Pirlo thinks his team is still playing at a level that is not the same as Barcelona.

Pirlo did have to accept the fact that Juventus had difficulty keeping up with Barcelona. Even though the Spanish giants are not at their best.

Barcelona have indeed repeatedly threatened the Juventus goal under Wojciech Szczesny. Two of them finally led to goals through the action of Ousmane Dembele and Lionel Messi’s penalty.

The Juventus players also looked frustrated, so they played hard enough which resulted in five yellow cards and one red card coming out of the referee’s pocket. This was exacerbated by the disallowed three goals from Alvaro Morata.

“We know it will be difficult against a team that plays good football, who are used to playing at this level, while we are in the process. In the end, this is a game that will be useful for us to grow and develop in the future,” Pirlo told Sky Sport Italia.

“It’s frustrating when you play with ten people, because you can’t pressure them. That’s what the players don’t realize when we play with ten people.”

Pirlo also acknowledged that the strategy he had prepared to reduce Barcelona’s game did not work optimally. He initially accelerated the tempo of the game to make his opponent difficult.

But the reality on the ground speaks differently. Barcelona are relatively comfortable playing the short passes that are their trademark.

“The plan is to get the Barcelona defense wide, but we tend to get too close and play on all fronts. We have to be quicker in the way we move the ball to create a one-on-one situation, but we didn’t do it tonight,” he added.

This minor result made Pirlo’s position even more under pressure. He practically only presented two wins from six games for Juventus.

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