Playing against their toughest opposition of the young season Sunday night at the Allianz Stadium, Thiago Motta’s Juventus looked very much different than the team that scored six goals in their first two outings of the 2024-25 campaign.
The scoreless draw against Roma in Turin was the first instance of Juve dropping points after back-to-back wins to start the Motta era. Juventus managed just one shot on goal and eight shots total against a Roma side that claimed just one point in their first two matches but came to Turin with a strong defensive plan set out by manager Daniele De Rossi.
Ultimately, Motta felt like each team coming away with a point was the right outcome.
“It was a balanced game where Roma forced us back down their right flank, but in the second half we did better, had more of the ball and tried to pin them into their own half,” Motta said after the final whistle. “I think the result was fair. Roma deserve credit for slowing down the tempo, it was difficult for us to break out and push them back. There are many things we can improve to raise the level against good opponents. It was extremely balanced.”
With the transfer window closing earlier in the week and all recent signings available for selection, this was as close to a full squad Motta has had available for selection so far this season. Juventus were still without midfielder Kephren Thuram and forwards Timothy Weah and Arek Milik due to injury, but Motta showed that he has many more options than he did the first two weeks of the season with who he brought on in the second half.
It’s still a Juventus team, however, that hasn’t trained together much since the arrivals of Nico Gonzalez, Francisco Conceição and most notably Teun Koopmeiners, who finalized his move from Atalanta two days before the transfer window closed.
“We have many quality players, including those that started the game, but we only did it in fits and starts today,” Motta said. “It was normal at this period of the season for there to be some drops in physical intensity, which is why everyone is ready to give their contribution.”
Motta was naturally asked about Dusan Vlahovic’s struggles against Roma on Sunday night, but wasn’t going to anything close to the full blame on his No. 9. Instead, Motta rightfully said it was more of a team issue rather than Vlahovic being the only one being ineffective in the final third.
“The whole team can improve in terms of precision, because we have the quality to do it,” Motta said.”We were up against a strong Roma side and in the end, the draw was the right result.”
As Juventus head into the international break on a positive start to the season, it was only natural that Motta was asked about his team’s aspirations for the new campaign.
And Motta concluded his time on Sky Italia with a pretty nice little response.
“Yes,” Motta began, “it is playing against Empoli at the maximum, then the game after that at the maximum, and so on and so forth. We’ll see where we are in the important months of the season, but it is far too early to talk about anything beyond that,” he replied.
“We have a competitive, solid squad where we will be competitive in every match.”
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