Juve and the anti-Nantes formation: Allegri thinks of the trident plus Kostic

Alexandre Dumas recounts in the «Vicomte de Bragelonne», in which he narrates the story of Charles de Batz de Castelmore, who became famous as d’Artagnan, whom the fourth musketeer arrested in Nantes Nicolas Fouquet, the former Superintendent of Finance who had dared to expose shade the Sun King, and then escorted him from the Bastille to Pinerolo, in Piedmont, scarcely 40 km from Turin. December 1664 to January 1665. A similar journey, albeit in the opposite direction, that Juventus will travel on Wednesday (more comfortably by plane though) with the aim of going to the city of the Dukes of Brittany to qualify for the second round of Europa League that can be worth a whole season.

The powerful French monarch who lived in the 1600s could count on the absolute loyalty not only of D’Artagnan, but also of the other three musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, protagonists of one of the most famous trilogies in French literature. Massimiliano Allegri also has his four valiant knights and with them he is ready to go on to conquer France. The occasion is special and the motto «all for one, one for all» is perfect for the moment and for this Lady, who can only find the strength to become great again in unity. In the first leg, the coach chose a more prudent solution, trident yes but not Filip Kostic on the bench, one of the men in the best shape at the moment, and he paid for it with the French equalizer in the second half. For the second leg, Max has a more offensive team in mind, because he knows that in those 90 minutes (or maybe even more in the case of overtime and penalties) there will be a lot of play, perhaps everything. This is why he kept Angel Di Maria, putting him only in the second half, and left Federico Chiesa in Turin, struggling with fatigue. On Thursday he wants both of them on the pitch, together with Dusan Vlahovic and the other Serbian, in the 3-4-3 that he has already tested against Fiorentina, the only previous one for 4-star Juventus.

Everything will depend on the conditions of Chiesa, who worked at Continassa yesterday while his teammates enjoyed the day off after the victory over Spezia, and will do everything to be there. The sensations are good, the exclusion from the squad list was only precautionary, to give the blue time to recover well after two games in a row as a starter: no one forgets the bad injury and the long stop he was forced into .

Chiesa returned to scoring (with Monza in the Italian Cup) and assisted Vlahovic in the first leg of the Europa League play-offs. In his first season in the black and white shirt, he had scored three goals in the only two knockout matches played in the Champions League (round of 16 round trip with Porto). With his accelerations he can do a lot of harm, which is why Allegri is waiting for him and would like to deploy him closer to goal, relieving him at least in part from defensive duties. Kostic won the Europa League last season with Eintracht Frankfurt, scoring three times between the round of 16 and assisting in the final. It is no coincidence that he was chosen as the best player of the tournament. Di Maria played in the Europa League only once with Benfica 13 years ago, stopping in the quarter-finals: it’s one of the few trophies missing from his huge showcase, which is why he is very keen on making a good impression. Vlahovic, on the other hand, discovered this competition in the black and white shirt and sealed his debut with a goal, exactly as he did last season in his Champions League debut against Villarreal away. This time it won’t be Spain but France, the land of the four musketeers. Those of Allegri play football well and have only one goal: to win in order to continue the European campaign.