Andrea Pirlo has insisted that his side had to rely on passion to resurrect themselves in the tie with Torino after being behind for over an hour in the derby.
Our rivals led from inside the opening 10 minutes, thanks to our failure to clear from the corner, with the ball dropping free in the box for Nkoulou to fire home.
We then endured over an hour without coming up with an equaliser, suffering with missing tackles and limited opportunities being created inside their box, before we had a breakthrough.
The team was uplifted into the second-half, firstly by Juan Cuadrado’s effort, which was ruled out because Bonucci was deemed to be in an offside position when the ball was struck, and had to get out of the way of the shot.
It wasn’t long after that Weston McKennie woke up in the box to level the scores, before Bonucci found himself free in the box thanks to a perfect Cuadrado cross to snatch the lead and all three points on the 90 minute mark.
Pirlo now states how amazing, and tiring, it is to oversee a derby win in charge, before dissecting the match’s events.
“Winning the derby as a coach is more tiring and you suffer more, but the final result doesn’t change and it’s always wonderful,” he said after the full-time whistle (as translated by Juve’s official website).
“When you lose all the duels, it’s difficult to control the contest. In the first half, we didn’t manage to be aggressive.
“We were too static and didn’t play with width. We went up a gear in the second half, injected intensity and created plenty of chances. The players who came on did well and showed their desire and dynamism.
“When you can’t get the scoreline you want through your play, you have to do so through your spirit and DNA. We have to improve and move the ball faster, otherwise we give our opposition too much time to get into their positions. You need to call on experience in certain games.
“When you play young players, you need patience and to give them time to develop. As for [Juan] Cuadrado, he’s a top player who’s used to these types of matches and playing under pressure. I’m pleased with how we’re learning in terms of our movement and the way we face certain tactical situations.
“I’m not happy with the lack of consistency in our results. We have to show desire and tenacity in every game.”
The team is still struggling to wake up in the early stages of our matches, possibly not helped by having to play twice a week without a break, but we need to get over these excuses.
Hopefully after the group stages are finished this week we can find some consistency in the division ahead of Christmas.
Patrick
