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When Cristiano Ronaldo takes off his shirt and celebrates wildly, then it is usually a winning strike or a goal of much significance.
That is exactly what the Portuguese thought he had done when he directed a last-minute header into the net during Juventus's opening Serie A game against Udinese.
The 36-year-old thought he had won the game at the death but his celebrations and that of the away fans were cut short when the VAR ruled that he was offside by inches.
And so that is how the Old Lady dropped their first points of the season with a 2-2 draw. But it shouldn’t have even come to that. Juventus took a healthy 2-0 lead in the first half only to cheaply blow it up.
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Juventus made to pay for profligacy
The Bianconeri were so good in the first half that they could easily have been 5-0 ahead. Their profligacy, however, proved to be their undoing.
Paulo Dybala and Juan Cuadrado set the ball rolling with early goals but the Max Allegri’s side couldn’t build on it, allowing Udinese to claw their way back following an atrocious performance from Wojciech Szczesny.
The Juventus goalkeeper was culpable for both goals scored by the home team, carelessly causing a penalty and again fluffing his lines for Udinese’s equalizer.
In the end, though, Juventus’s failure to take their chances cost them. Dybala, Cuadrado, Alvaro Morata and Rodrigo Bentancur all missed good chances and the team was ultimately made to pay for it.
Allegri given reality check
Allegri won so much with Juventus in his first stint that his return has sparked a lot of excitement among the fans. However, a lot of things have changed.
The Bianconeri are no longer the lone dominant force they used to be, while their rivals have also become stronger in recent years. Sunday’s draw against Udinese is, therefore, the perfect wake-up call.
“We played a good game. Unfortunately, that’s what football is about. We should have done better in the second half, we were unable to manage unexpected events. This must serve us as a lesson,” Allegri said after the game, as quoted by Football Italia.
“We lost too many balls in the middle of the park in the second half. Perhaps we were a little tired. Still, you can’t concede these kinds of goals. We defended well, we hadn’t conceded a shot on target.”
Juventus have a good team and a great coach but they need to be consistent to reclaim the title they lost last season. And on the basis of how they’ve started the season, it looks like Allegri has a lot of work to do.
