Juve in the abyss, Spalletti questions himself and Europe'Europa

After the heavy defeat against Fiorentina on the penultimate day of Serie A, Luciano Spalletti takes responsibility for Juventus’ difficult moment, now with Champions League qualification strongly at risk.

“Clearly, this is a very bad result: we played a very bad game in many respects, while in others the episode did not turn in our favor,” the Juventus coach told Sky. Then the personal admission: “I first of all need to question myself, because if I come to the field today and my team offers this… Did I do everything to bring the players in the right mental condition?”

Spalletti also dismisses the climate of pressure that, according to him, ends up crushing the players. “It was a game to win, but the games of life are others. This fact that it’s all lost, all over, all thrown away is the wrong thing, where you put everyone in prison who plays sports and plays soccer,” he explained. And again, “Then we know that by not going to the Champions League the club loses money, but to talk about a match of life or death or war, it’s not good: these are soccer matches and the players are forcibly affected.”

Despite the knockout, the coach tries to look beyond the immediate result, claiming the team’s journey. “My assessment is not just today, because in my opinion they have done great things and important growth,” he stressed. “The game remains and that’s what brought us here, so we have to re-exhibit what brought us here today.”

At Dazn’s microphones, the coach then went on the attack against the narrative around Juventus’ season: “You like to call them failures, you give them this load here to life or death results, about having thrown away a season: today is a game. For my point of view, a path has been made where we have seen that the team has reacted, has created assumptions that they can also aspire to play against higher levels. Then a club like Juve deserves to be in the Champions League, but there go four and there are many strong teams. So we take responsibility, keep quiet and go and analyze ourselves above all. We are in the Europa League, you could have been out of that as well.”