Juve at -4 from the Champions League: the last time closer? Two months ago

You see Juve turning the mid-championship mark at -4 from the fourth Atalanta and therefore from the Champions area and it seems a lifetime that the goal was not so close, if it makes sense to define it that way. And this is already a clear picture of the “perceived temperature” of the Lady’s season so far. Less than four points away from fourth place Juventus had only had them in the week of the terrible one-two Sassuolo-Verona which weighs like a boulder on the season: before the knockout with the Emilians, with the same taken back by the hair at Inter, Juve was still -1 from fourth Rome. It was the last week of October, two months have passed.

FROM GODDESS TO GODDESS

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The threshold of three points of distance is factual, because it means being able to recover within a game, perhaps even a direct confrontation. Like the one with Atalanta: the last -4 before today had been the one with which we had presented ourselves to the duel with the Bergamo players, less than a month ago, November 27, decided by a goal from Zapata at the end of one of the best performance of the season in terms of play. Third fall of the season at the Stadium, with what it meant on a psychological level, that result with the Goddess dug the ditch if only because in the direct clashes the points are worth double not to say, but in fact: those made by the winner are taken away to those who lose.

TOWARDS JANUARY

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It would be enough to reverse that result with Atalanta and Juve would be in the Champions League today at the end of the first leg. Thinking like this leaves the time it finds, parallel realities do not exist, but gives an idea of ​​the importance of the games that await Allegri after the break: from the Epiphany, in seven days, Naples, Rome and Supercoppa with Inter in sequence , then before the first leg with Villarreal on 22 February he also found Milan and Atalanta himself, and in the meantime he also started the Italian Cup (which cannot be a goal in the year in which the championship race is unattainable).

IN THE LAST EIGHT

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Thinking about what will happen in January in continuity with how Juve finished 2021 risks being misleading, because the break is a break in the work that at this moment can also be seen as counterproductive for the balance that Allegri has reached: from at the beginning of November, the bianconeri scored 19 points out of the 24 available, as many as Atalanta and for now also Inter (which has yet to play the last leg against Toro), however stronger than the rest of the championship.

DEFENSE AND SHORT SNOUT

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The downhill calendar at the end of the group helped, but Juve put their self in this series with Salernitana, Genoa, Bologna and Cagliari (less with Venice) it went better than with Udinese, Empoli, Sassuolo and Verona until the end. October. The eight seasonal clean sheets have something to do with it, six of which in the last eight games, when Juve conceded only one goal from Atalanta and one from Venice. It has a little to do with having learned to win, albeit suffering a little at the beginning of the second half, looking beyond the short muzzle: the last five successes came with two goals, the previous five had been with only one goal. waste. Upon returning from the belay, the bar goes up by two or three levels, completely different opponents, but Chiesa and Dybala who would be the stars return. Juve gets there alive.