Having been dumped out of the Champions League by PSV Eindhoven last week, the Coppa Italia reversal added to the club’s woes and piled the pressure on the 42-year-old.
Motta opted to give top scorer Dusan Vlahovic another run out, after the Serbia striker impressed in his first Serie A start of 2025 by snatching a sensational winner against Cagliari at the weekend.
Vlahovic had a nightmare evening inside the cauldron of the Allianz Stadium in Turin, despite facing injury-ravaged Empoli who were forced to field a large mixture of fringe and youth team players.
The 25-year-old missed plenty of chances during the 90 minutes, which finished 1-1. Then hit his spot-kick over the target when the tie moved into a penalty shootout.
Turkish teenager Kenan Yildiz was thrown on as a substitute, but fared no better by squandering chances to bag a winner and saw his spot-kick saved to send Juventus crashing out of the Coppa Italia.
Motta fumed in the post-match press conference: “We can only apologise to our fans, apologise to the club, apologise to the history of this club, because we really hit rock bottom today.
“We are not in the semi-final because we did not deserve to be. I feel ashamed of what we saw in the first-half, and I hope my players feel the same.
“We played back to the goalkeeper 20 times at least, without taking responsibility, without going forward, always looking to someone else.
“It was embarrassing and evidently it was my fault, as I did not show my players the importance of the game or what this [Juventus] shirt means. We cannot get this attitude so wrong.”