Juventus 3-1 Atalanta: 3 takeaways from Juve’s last pre-season friendly

Juventus ended their run of four friendly games just as how they commenced the spell. More than a fortnight ago, the Bianconeri embarked on their 2021 pre-season with a 3-1 victory against Cesena, and they wrapped up the proceedings with a 3-1 triumph over Atalanta this time.

Thanks to three well-executed goals from Paulo Dybala, Federico Bernardeschi, and Alvaro Morata, Massimiliano Allegri’s men will dive into a new Serie A season with some jubilant memories.

Speaking of the game, Dybala, as reported earlier in our pre-match piece, eventually returned to Bianconeri’s starting line-up after being out for a prolonged spell through injuries. Subsequently, La Joya opened the scoring for Juventus on the evening, breaking the deadlock.

Leonardo Bonucci, who started the game alongside Matthijs de Ligt in the defence, conceded a silly foul following a lousy challenge on Remo Freuler inside the box. After Luis Muriel restored the parity from the spot, Juventus let their domination on the game slip from their grip a bit.

A hammering Federico Bernardeschi strike from outside the box, however, saw the Old Lady regain the lead on the scoreboard. During the last minute of the game, Dejan Kulusevski’s lateral ball found Morata, who put the ball past Atalanta’s custodian with utter ease to heap more misery on La Dea.

That being said, here are our three key takeaways from this mouth-watering encounter.

1. Allegri’s team had shades of Pirlo’s Juventus

Those memories have now started to fade away. One year ago, Juventus were preparing to add a new chapter in their history book, with a newly-appointed manager in Andrea Pirlo supposed to be leading the team from the front. Much was written about Pirlo’s thesis and beliefs regarding football after he got promoted to the managerial role for the senior Juventus side.

Under Pirlo’s supervision, there were uncertainties around many matters. But it was clear that the 4-4-2 was his preferred formation. Perhaps he was quick to grasp that this Juventus side operates at its best when the players are fielded in that particular formation.

Despite failing to lead Juventus to another Scudetto, Pirlo helped them win a Supercoppa Italiana and Coppa Italia. His spell might be considered underwhelming, but it appears as if his successor, Max Allegri, has borrowed some of his formulas and has been seen implementing them throughout the pre-season.

Against Atalanta, the idea became more apparent, and we may have got a hint of how Juve’s returnee boss might field his team going forward.

Saturday evening’s encounter witnessed Juve starting the game with a back four, a four-man midfield — with two wide midfielders in Bernardeschi and Federico Chiesa, and two forwards — with Cristiano Ronaldo playing as a striker and Paulo Dybala being deployed as a second striker.

The trinity of Ronaldo, Chiesa, and Dybala came into effect during the first half of the game when Ronaldo initiated a high-flying counter-attack with his bursting dart forward. Dybala was available to his left and on his right, there was Chiesa. Ronaldo chose the latter. And what a great pick it came out to be, with Chiesa’s pin-point through ball finding Dybala on the left. From there, the ball was destined to go only one way — into the net.

Playing mostly down the left side of the midfield, Bernardeschi also showed his mettle with a monstrous volley from outside the 18-yard-box. The newly-married Italian has now become a formidable candidate in this Allegri-driven side. He will be in contention to start Juve’s opening game against Udinese.

Although Allegri decided to switch things and place a three-man back-line with the introduction of Mattia De Sciglio during the latter part of the competition, it is obvious that we would see this 4-4-2 getting used a lot in the weeks and months to come. Whether the players will be the same as they were on Saturday remains to be seen.