Juventus impotent in heavy loss to Lazio

Going into Sunday’s game between Juventus and Lazio, the Biancocelesti hadn’t won a game at the Allianz since 2017, back when Ciro Immobile was banging in goals and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was blossoming into a full-on superstar. It was still the height of the Streak, before Beppe Marotta was forced out of the front office by Andrea Agnelli and Juve’s long, slow decline began.

So yeah, a long time ago.

But that long unbeaten streak against Lazio at home ended with a thud. Juventus’ attack continued to prove toothless, generating just two shots on target all night. They held Lazio to only three of their own — but the problem was that Lazio made the most of all three, ruthlessly finishing whenever they had the chance to polish off a 3-0 win.

Indeed, Juve were outplayed for much of the night. Whatever momentum they might have picked up from their last-second win over Celta Vigo midweek was nowhere to be found. They were on the back foot for much of the night, while Lazio at times played football that made you wonder where the hell Gennarro Gattuso was keeping this when he was failing to qualify for the World Cup with Italy seven months ago.

It was an awful game, through and through, and now it leaves everyone picking up the pieces.

Luciano Spalletti was in the stands after his post-match red card against Cagliari a week prior, so top assistant Marco Domenichini had charge of the dugout. The absentee list wasn’t as long as it has been for much of the season, but the players in contained were just as important, with Kenan Yildiz, Manuel Locatelli, Khéphren Thruam, and Jeff Ekhator all missing out. Guglielmo Vicario started behind a 3-4-2-1 setup, with Pierre Kalulu, Bremer, and Jhon Lucumí screening him at the back. Weston McKennie and Zeki Çelik started at the wing-back spots, with Douglas Luiz and Pape Matar Sarr making up the midfield. Nico González and Kerim Alajbegovic supported Randal Kolo Muani up front.

Gattuso had Lazio up at the top of the table through the first six games of the year, and it was even more impressive that he’d done so without one of his top midfield playmakers, Nicolò Rovella, along with Albert Gudmundsson, Matteo Cancellieri, Alessio Furlanetto, and Adam Marusic. He deployed his charges in a 4-3-3, anchored by Christos Mandas. Romano Floriani M********, Josip Sutalo, Oliver Provstgaard, and Nuno Tavares made up the defense. Reda Belahyane, Davide Frattesi, and Kenneth Taylor made up the midfield, while Gustav Isaksen, Tijjani Noslin, and Mattia Zaccagni made up the attacking trident.

Lazio swiftly took control of things as proceedings began. They pressed well, flustering Juve and thwarting their efforts to get out of their own half, with Frattesi often moving up to overload the back three. When Juve did manage to get out, they initially looked like they could perhaps cause problems. Alajbegovic had a long shot saved in the early going during one end-to-end exchange, and Kolo Muani, looking far more confident than he has at previous points this season, dribbled around Sutalo only to see his cross bounce off González’s knee.

Kolo Muani had the ball in the net in the 24th minute, but was flagged offside, a call confirmed after VAR checked to see whether the last touch was off González or Belahyane. Isaksen responded with an angled header from eight yards out, but didn’t get his angle right and sailed it past the far post. But it wasn’t long before Lazio had pushed their way in front.

It started with a relatively poor free kick delivery by Zaccagni. Taylor quickly recycled it back to his captain, and the Italy international lofted the ball into the penalty area, where Provstgaard lost his marker and then outleaped Bremer to flick it down and into the net past Vicario.

Lazio continued to pile on the pressure, and a deflected strike from Tavares very nearly made it 2-0 just before the half, but it clanked off the top of the crossbar.

Nick Woltemade came on to add some oomph to the attack, but the stagnancy continued. Within the first minute of the restart both Kolo Muani and the big German tried to dribble through the defense int he box, only for the defense to take it off then, leaving Lucumí’s long-range effort the only hope of getting anything out of the sequence. Just short of 10 minutes into the second period the German was off-target at the end of an excellent counterattack.

The end was near just after the hour mark, when Tavares made an incredible switch to Isaksen on the right. Çelik’s defense left a lot to be desired as the Swede got himself in position for a low, angled drive that Vicario didn’t have much prayer in stopping.

Changes were made, but Juve’s attack simply wasn’t going to grow teeth. Francisco Coneição had a relatively tame shot saved seven minutes from time, and then just before normal time ended Lazio broke out on a counter. Fisayo Dele-Bashiru saw Bremer coming toward him and, after a moment to size up the situation, burned the Brazilian for pace before firing across goal and past a despairing Vicario for the final tally on a night that Juventus would like to forget.