Serie A, Lecce stops Juve: 1-1 at the Via del Mare | News

Small change in the summer and post-Lokomotiv fatigue toxins weigh down a Juve who approaches the Lecce trip with a saving attitude. Days like this are usually entrusted to the goodness of Ronaldo, a double step or a deadlift and everything goes well. This time, however, there is no CR7, Sarri spared him flight, a night away from home and sweaty afternoon. But it is clear that without him it is not all easy as if it were there. There are Dybala and Higuain, in agreement, they also give themselves to do, but in Sarriano football if you throw the ball forward to the two attackers just hoping to go and hug them there is something wrong. In all this, of course, there is also Lecce, a team well aware of its shortcomings and its limits, especially at home. A line-up totally based on the defensive phase, a half-shot on goal throughout the first half, the constant presence of eleven players behind the ball line. A wall difficult to break up but from which it is also difficult to free oneself. From there, from the parts of Szczesny, Lecce does it a few times, and it is always a journey of hope. Episodes are needed to write the history of matches like this. We need episodes that do not happen in the first half and we do not fully understand why.

The opportunities come both from the initiatives of Dybala and those of Higuain (a goal by Pipita canceled in the 26th minute), they don't go to the back of the net just because there is Gabriel or just because some defender sacrifices himself at the last moment. But it is inevitable that the episodes must determine the fate of this hot and sticky afternoon. The first episode rewards Juve, with Pjanic pouncing on a rebound, trying to shoot, being overwhelmed by Petriccione, a few spans inside the area. Valeri uses the Var to make sure it is right inside, Dybala then transforms the rigor with the class that distinguishes it. But the pro-Juve episode is followed almost immediately by the pro-Lecce episode, which is then an awkward intervention by De Ligt, ball on his arm, a penalty made without emotion by Mancosu. At Lecce it does not seem true to have taken the train back on the platform of the first half, a tortuous and painful but profitable route. Sarri begins to lose his patience, he does not see his weekly work applied, he rails heavily against his own, he gets a yellow card but the worst curses are surely those that escape him when he loses Pjanic, center of gravity of his game due to injury. With Bentancur to dictate the times cannot be the same thing, let alone if all that is around is not already working. And here we return to the starting point. There were Ronaldo would be another thing. But Ronaldo is not there, Bernardeschi is not the same thing and he eats a couple of goals, Dybala touches the post with a shot to the round, Higuain takes a blow on the head and ends with the turban. Errors and individual, but Sarri is furious for the final management. Not a great team, not Juventus, not Sarri's team.

REPORT CARDS
HIGUAIN 7 – His touches of the ball are not trivial to me. They may be wrong sometimes, but never trivial. They always have a purpose. Match after game is showing more and more that it was a bargain not to sell it in the summer, it is his most dangerous attempts (including a goal canceled in the 15th minute of the first half) from the first minutes. He sacrifices himself in search of the goal and also leaves a few drops of blood on the grass.
DYBALA 7.5 – The theory says that everyone should put themselves at the service of the team, but then there is the practice and this says that a player lives his game also based on contingent emotions. Dybala without Ronaldo plays differently, he feels freer (even talking to his friend Higuain) and even more motivated. Seeing it from outside is definitely more fun. Looking at him with Sarri's eyes, you probably don't see the same thing, but on all the bianconeri occasions of the first half there is his left foot. Almost inevitable that the signature on the goal that unlocks everything, even if strictly speaking, is his own.
GABRIEL 7 – His career was a very long apprenticeship, lived almost always in rearguard positions. In Lecce he seems to have finally found the maturity that was expected of him, it is clear that behind his parades there is a job well done. It is a half miracle what he does at 26 'of the first half on a Dybala shot.
PJANIC 5.5 – More than a metronome on this occasion, it is a thermometer, in the sense that its performance measures that of a Juventus who needs to catch his breath. The supports are not always those that are expected of him, some passage that normally slips away smooth as a mirror gets tangled up on the opposing barrier. When playing always can happen. Also because then players like this always have a blaze and from one of these comes the penalty then scored by Dybala. Then he gets hurt and this is the real trouble for Juve.
BERNARDESCHI 5 – One of the rare cases in which Sarri makes partial changes to his tactical dogmas to try to exploit the characteristics of a player. Going from the classic 4-3-3 to the 4-3-1-2 means trying to make the most of the characteristics of this guy, who spurs on wanting to show off but doesn't find the continuity that is expected of him, too often he goes inside with his head down, too many times he fails on a choice made even when his companions dictate an alternative. The mirror of his game is the goal that is eaten in the 16th minute of the second half, when he does everything well, controls a throw from a distance, jumps the goalkeeper and throws it on the pole.
FARIAS 4.5 – Quite surprising its total apathy in the first half, knowing the characteristics of the player, always very annoying for the opposing defenses. He never catches her, takes Liverani's reprimands, does not fit into the recovery.
MANCOSU 6.5 – The spirit of rebellion pushes him to a raid with all the trappings in the opposing area, after Juventus took the lead. He more than Babacar has the numbers to go to tease the weak points of the Juventus defense. A minute of glory for him, who first commits Szczesny with a poisonous left then transforms the rigor provoked by De Ligt.
DE LIGT 5 – They all happen to him. It will be a matter of bad luck or perhaps posture, but when some trouble happens in the Juventus area, there is always the Dutch boy involved. This time the hand ball (unlike the intervention at the end of Juventus-Bologna) is punishable and is in fact sanctioned with rigor. Always to him, who knows why.

THE TABLE
LECCE-JUVENTUS 1-1
Lecce (4-3-1-2): Gabriel 7; Meccariello 6 (71 'Rispoli 6), Rossettini 6.5, Lucioni 6.5, Calderoni 6.5; Majer 6 (58 'Tabanelli 6), Tachsidis 6, Petriccione 6; Mancosu 6.5, Farias 4.5 (46 'Lapadula 6); Babacar 5. To avail.: Vigorito, Benzar, Riccardi, Dell'Orco, Vera, Shakhov, Lo Faso, La Mantia, Falco. Annex Liverani 6.5.
Juventus (4-3-1-2): Szczesny 6; Danilo 5.5 (58 'Cuadrado 6.5), Bonucci 6, De Ligt 5, Alex Sandro 6; Emre Can 6 (72 'Rabiot 6), Pjanic 5.5 (65' Khedira 5.5), Bentancur 6; Bernardeschi 5; Dybala 7.5, Higuain 7. To avail.: Pinsoglio, Buffon, De Sciglio, Rugani, Demiral, Matuidi, Olivieri, Han. Herds Sarri 5.5.
Referee: Valeri.
Markers: 5 'st penalty Dybala (J), 11' st rigore Mancuso (L)
Ammonites Calderoni (L), Rossettini (L), Mancosu (L), Bernardeschi (J), Lapadula (L).

THE STATISTICS OF LECCE-JUVENTUS
• Maurizio Sarri drew a Serie A match against a newly promoted opponent after a streak of 13 consecutive wins in the competition.
• Lecce was the 29th team played by Sarri in Serie A as coach: the Apulian team is the only one against which the current Juventus coach has not achieved at least one victory in the competition.
• Lecce remained unbeaten for two consecutive championship matches against Juventus (2N) for the first time since 2004.
• Juventus recorded a 70.8% ball possession, a record for the Bianconeri in Serie A in the 2019 calendar year.
• Juventus made 15 shots in this first half, a record in Serie A in progress. The bianconeri did better only against Parma (17), in February, in the entire 2018/19 championship.
• Lecce is one of the two teams in this Serie A, together with Parma, to have always lined up a starting line-up with an average age of over 28 years in all the competitions of the current competition.
• Paulo Dybala found the network in two consecutive appearances in all competitions for the first time since March 2018.
• Marco Mancosu scored four goals from the spot in this Serie A, in the five major European championships in progress no one has done better (like Daniel Parejo of Valencia).
• Mancosu scored five goals in the current championship: the last Lecce midfielder to have scored at least five goals in a single Serie A tournament was Fabio Caserta (five in 2008/09).
• Gonzalo Higuain played his 200th match in Serie A and the 100th from the Juventus shirt in all competitions.