Juventus V Olympiakos
19:45 UK
Champions League – Game 4 [4th November 2014] – Juventus Stadium
Juventus
We stand on a great precipice. The next month is the most critical run of this Juventus season to date. While the Serie A fixture list is not necessarily dangerous, though matches versus Torino and Fiorentina lay ahead, the three remaining Champions League games are all must wins for the Old Lady. The good news is that two of the three games are at Juventus Stadium, but Juve will have to travel to Malmo in late November. Of course, the last group stage match is versus Atletico Madrid. Most likely, Juventus will be in a win or die situation there, which should elevate the blood pressure of Juventini worldwide.
Depending on how you look at it, Juventus are either in the midst of a crisis, or turning the corner after a rough patch. Though tomorrow’s result pretty much decides which of these narratives continues on through the following weeks.
One thing to watch out for ahead of this match is both the lack of options, and the breadth of options that Max has. On the one hand, some players are injured or returning from injury and thus can’t play. Specifically, Angelo Ogbonna’s injury throws the backline into flux.
On the other hand, Max does have options. Even if he is forced to use a four man back line, well, that opens up an open role elsewhere in the field. We may see a 4-3-3, or a 4-3-1-2 of sorts. Alvaro Morata’s fine form also influences his decision. Why choose between Morata and Fernando Llorente when you can start both alongside Carlos Tevez?
That said, the big question is if Ogbonna starts. Giorgio Chiellini and Leo Bonucci will start in front of Gigi Buffon, that, we know. Although, we could see Chiellini at left back in a four man backline. Padoin could play at left back too, although of course Kwadwo Asamoah is first choice there.
Stephan Lichsteiner will start at right wing back or right back, and from there things are clearer. Paul Pogba and Claudio Marchisio are starting in midfield. Barring a big shift in formation, one of Arturo Vidal or Andrea Pirlo will start. That’s also an interesting choice as Marchisio can fill both of their roles.
Finally, up top we know Carlos Tevez is starting, and it’s widely reported that Morata is joining him. It’s possible to see someone else up top, but this is depending on the formation and not on Allegri’s preference over who will start: we know his preferred two for Tuesday.
This is the single most important game of the season, so far. There most likely will be games which have greater weight, but so far no one match has had as much of an influence on the season as tomorrow’s game will. Fino alla fine, forza Juventus.
Predicted Lineup
3-5-2 : Buffon; Ogbonna, Bonucci, Chiellini; Lichtsteiner, Vidal, Marchisio, Pogba, Padoin; Morata, Tevez
Injuries
Andrea Barzagli, Martin Caceres, Simone Pepe, Patrice Evra.
Angelo Ogbonna and Kwadwo Asamoah (Both in the squad)
Olympiakos
It’s tough to place a finger on Olympiakos. They kicked our ass last week, and they beat Atletico 3-2. However, they also lost to Malmo 2-0. That said, we know they will play quickly against Juventus, as they did in the first match. They will look to move the ball to Juve’s half with speed, and they will look to hit Juve’s defense when they are not totally organized. Basically, the game plan they used to beat Juve last time.
While Olympiakos are not in first place in Greece -undefeated PAOK are – they are still in rather fine form in the league. They’re five points off of first, but their only lost is to PAOK and they recently beat Panthinaikos in the “Aikos Derby.” That’s my name for the derby.
Olympiakos have a few injured players and they may be missing two starters from the last match: Alberto Botia and Alejandro Dominguez. Neither are critical absences for the side, but both men played well last time out so it will hurt Olympiakos. Ibrahim Afellay, who didn’t have a great game when he came on as a sub versus Juve, could start if Dominguez misses the match.
Predicted Lineup
4-4-1-1 : Roberto; Masuaku, Abidal, Botía, Elabdellaoui; Kasami, Milivojevic, Ndinga, Maniatis; Afellay, Mitroglou
Injuries
Jorge Benitez, Alejandro Domínguez and Alberto Botía
wtf is happenign?!
DONT THINK JUST SHOUT
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH
BETTER!!!
5-2 finish…im predicting
C’mon Juveeeee
POGBBBAAA LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
BOOOOOOOM MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
3 minutes ago i was looking at Juventus 1 2 Olympiacos. Now it’s fucking 3-2
ONLY CAPS ALLOWED YOU FUCKER WE SCORED
OH I’M SO TERRIBLY SORRY
NOW YOU’RE TALKING!
YAY I’M TALKING!
BAD LUCK COULDNT KEEP US DOWN THIS TIME!!
Don’t give this away !!!!
5-2
my emotions are going up and down. ill be so emotionally tired after this match 🙂
UP UP UP
hell yeah
hahah woow I can’t believe this stupid game could do this much to me, I’m almost ready to storm out of the house and cheer on the streets. Too bad I’m the only Juvefan in miles
haha.. do it anyway
xD
Belgium is only a few hours away, i’ll be right there 😛
Waiting for ya! xD
FUCKKKKKK THAT BITCH OF A GOALKEEPER DESERVES IT
NO PADOIN NO PARTY!!!! PREPARE FOR 3-4!!!!
So my stream has been crap since the start of the half.have we been playing well?
OMG!!!!
man i did the balotelli germany pose when we scored
lol
im not kidding actually my muscles hurt like shit because of how much i was flexing
Great sub…
padoin gave great head at half time
he did not actually sub in Padoin? stream crashed at the sub
oh my god fuck off allegri, this is asking for it
as if conte didnt play padoin EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.
allegri barely plays padoin
Every minute Padoin plays is one too many.
No argument there, would have said the same if it was still Conte
nothing is worse than padoin starting against bayern munich when we’re 2-0 down
That time was different tho. A lot of our players were injured at the time
we had caceres available to play rb
The worst part is, Padoin was one of our better players in that game
*cringes*
Ikr, just typing it gives me the creeps
True! 🙂
i thinks you shouldnt have asked and just shouldnt have known.
way better that way
I had a tiny sparkle of hope that it didn’t actually happen by doubting it 🙁
Almost three times as many passes as Olympiakos, if only that was worth something too
COME ON MALMO!
Well we still have to score another one…
Llorente’s goal is counted as a Roberto own goal
ASAMOAH GOT HAD LIKE A KIPPER THERE
It’ll stay like this until the 89th minute and then olympiacos will score. Mark my fucking words
dont jinx it!
NAH WE WILL SCORE AGAIN I GUARANTEE IT
if we dont i’m coming for ya!
TOLD YOU
No, I told you, I’m coming :p
Eh, can Pereyra play as a LB?
God it might be Padoin on the left side now, I can hardly recognise anyone on this stream
I think padoin is playing lb now?
could be, allegri said something about that before the game
UNBELIEVABLE
OMFG keep missing guys
GOD FUCKING SCORE THOSE EASY TAP INS
I think it was Llorente that saved us this game
not over yet
THINK IS JUST ABOUT KEEPING HIS JOB HERE
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ARSENAL??
ARENT WE WATCHING A SUPER EXCITING JUVE MATCH???
did i just see moggi?
yeah he’s in the stands
Chiellini is being crucial right now.
PEN000000000000000000000000
stop spoiling it……….
you spoiled the pogboom goal
stream late by like 20 seconds
Sorry, but don’t refresh when you watch a stream. I never refresh untill something happens.
PENALTY
PENALTY !!!!!!!!!
Penalty game over.
…
Yes?
I already saw the save when you wrote it, but didn’t want to spoil it for everyone.
What were u watching on?
A hungarian stream.
huhu my shite stream
that sums up vidals game
Unbelievable
did anyone just see pogba kick chiellinis balls LOL
Damn this leaves kind of a bad taste.. That penalty would have given us the second place. Ohwell, we still kind of have it in our own hands. FORZA JUVE!!!!
Does that mean they will go through on head to head?
No they don’t
If we are level on points they do.. I think
If it was 6 games, yes.
nope, its for Olympiakos
Thats what he means i think.
Misread it but means the same:p
Next thing in training: scoring goals with no keeper in goal from 1foot distance, until even padoin scores it blindfolded
well… win is a win
not a pretty game, but at least we got the 3 points. We need to get better if we are gonna beat Atl madrid. If we play like this against them we will loose.
Play with this intensity, but FINISH!!
it was a pretty game for me.
Sooo, should we be happy?
Meh.
im not happy
Ofcourse we should be damn happy. Came back from trailing 1-2 and we’re still in the CL.
We also played a great game, apart from the finishing problems.
Yeah but if Vidal finished that penalty….
I know. I had a feeling he would miss, there was just too much in his hands. Maybe this seperates him from the absolute top. Once again their GK had tons of luck with the goalposts…
messi missed a penalty against chelsea in 2012 which woulve won them the game.
And no one saw that coming. Everyone misses, but i have seen Vidal and most of our players fail more than once on crucial moments.
fucked up though. I don’t see olympiacos winning against atletico, Juve, however have to win the 2 remaining games.. I’m not so positive about how this will end
Fuck it we won and played better than all previous 3 games combined, but that finishing HAS to improve
we gotta win our last two games and depend on atletico to beat olympiakos once
or draw
deja vu. last season we needed to beat galatasaray and the season before shakhtar
Any of you brothers still alive out there ? 😉
Drama. Juve never make it easy
I just hope they qualify
UCL has never been easy for Juve. And, Juve never made UCL easy.
Well, we might have a small advantage. Juve play atleti at home. Olympiacos will play them away.
Props to Olympiacos for conceding 2 goals in the space of a min lol
I hope Allegri fields the same formation for the next serie A game. This was some great football. 3-5-2 is boring
so on november 26th…
if olympiacos and atletico draw: juventus will probably need two wins to get through to the next round, unless malmo beat olympiacos in greece.
if either olympiacos or atletico wins and the other loses: juventus will only need a win and a draw to get to the next round, but won’t have a chance to win the division.
tricky… HUGE miss from vidal at the end. should have been tevez taking the PK
We need to aim for 2 wins. 2 huge wins. Malmo away might be trickier than it sounds, but we absolutely have to be ready for Atleti
You already summed up what i was about to post. This win is so damn important, even the penalty is less important since it pretty much just ruins our chances of finishing first.
One thing though, if Atletico loses to Olympiacos, we will have to beat both Malmo and Atletico since they are already on 9 points. A draw against Atletico will send them to the next round because we lost to them.
Malmo can make it so easy for us by beating Olympiacos and losing to us.. Even a draw between Malmo and Olympiacos will do.
ahh you’re right- i forgot atletico is on 9 points.
we have less of a chance of going through that Olympiakos or Atletico
Read mine and nycJUVE’s comments below and think again. I think we have the upper hand since we play Atletico at home and they play them in Calderon. I don’t see them winning there and even if Olympiacos wins, we can beat Atletico at home. We were the better team in Madrid.
Just have to beat Malmo and at least get a point against Atletico. If Olympiakos then beat Malmo and lose to Atletico, we’re through. Its possible, Olympiakos play Atleti in Madrid and we play them home.
Malmo also play a big role in this, if Juve or Olympiakos fail to get all 3 points against them, there could be some real shenanigans. If we get really lucky now, Malmo will take points from Olympiakos
Player ratings are up – Agree ? Disagree ?
https://www.juvefc.com/champions-league-game-4-juventus-v-olympiakos/
Share your thoughts
Great game, but we need to take more of our chances.
Agree on that! 🙂