Champions League day 2
FC Barcelona delivers a strong performance in Italy, against Juventus and lead the group with two wins in two games. Dembélé and Messi were the two scorers in this game as the Catalans dominated the Serie A champions that were missing Cristiano Ronaldo due to another positive Covid-19 test.
Domination
Messi and his teammates were the best team on the pitch today, keeping the ball 60% of the time and shooting on targets which Juve was unable to accomplish during the whole game. Dembélé quickly put his team on the right path. The French international netted the first goal after only 14 minutes in this game.
FC Barcelona kept pushing the ball and created several close chances to add a second goal. Juventus did respond timidly but Demiral saw red leaving the team down to 10 men. Barcelona created one last chance and got rewarded a penalty that Messi converted, 90+1. The Argentinian last 4 goals came from this distance. The win places Barça in the best position to clinch another Round of 16 and especially the group’s first place.
Coach Koeman admitted “This was our best game so far this season” when asked about this team’s performance.
Difficult start for coach Pirlo
The Italian international and former Juventus and MLS player Andrea Pirlo took on the coaching job at the beginning of this season and is having a rough start with 5th in Serie A (5 points behind leaders AC Milan) and a home defeat to a rival FC Barcelona.
He commented on the result:
“It is a match that will allow us to grow. We knew it would be difficult against a strong team. We are under construction. We had to position ourselves better on the pitch, because on many occasions some of our players were too close. We had to be quicker with regards to changing the game, because we kept Chiesa wide to go one-on-one, but we couldn’t trigger it. Furthermore, I hope to recover other players because at the moment we have no other solutions.”
