It was a tale of two halves for Juventus, as they managed to pull back Bayern Munich’s two-goal advantage to earn a 2-2 draw in Turin on Tuesday.
While the first half saw a hapless Juventus side chasing the Bayern Munich players all over the pitch, the Italians came out in the second half with a much more concrete plan to press the Bavarians and trouble them with aerial balls into the box.
“We need to take away the great things we did in the second half whilst taking stock of and analysing properly the first 45 minutes too,” Allegri was quoted as saying by Juventus’s official website.
The Italian rued his side’s lack of composure in terms of converting chances, and believes that was one of the Bianconeri’s key issues in the first 45 minutes of the match.
“We had the opportunity to play better from a technical standpoint before the break and we also created a number of openings, but we failed to capitalise on them under pressure,” said Allegri.
However, the 48-year-old also conceded that Bayern Munich completely dominated the play in certain parts of the match. “For a certain period, they had ten players in our half and we did well to keep them at arm’s length,” he added. “We did, however, need to be better at attacking the spaces when we won back the ball.”
Did Allegri get his tactics wrong in the first half?
With Giorgio Chiellini injured, Allegri has been playing a variation of the 4-4-2 formation in recent matches. In this formation, Paul Pogba operates as a wide midfielder on the left side of the pitch. Allegri was hoping to press the two Bayern centre-backs (Joshua Kimmich and David Alaba) high up the pitch. However, the Bianconeri got heavily outnumbered in the other areas of the park, which is why the Bavarians were able to control so much of the game.
Also, Juventus’s narrow defensive shape allowed Bayern to consistently attack the flanks. Stellar performances by wingers Douglas Costa and Arjen Robben, as well as full-backs Philipp Lahm and Juan Bernat meant that the Bavarians had many more chances than the hosts.
