“A draw wouldn’t be so bad,” Unai Emery said on Tuesday. On Wednesday, his team drew 0-0 with Juventus and extended a dismal streak: seven games without a win in all competitions. Few coaches maneuver with more. By dint of adding chloroform, delaying the pressure, stretching the plays and letting time pass, Emery’s team invited Juventus on a pleasant trip for everyone. The conclusion is that after five days the distribution of points serves both clubs. To Juventus, because they add in another’s field, and to Villa, because they have 10 points and that places them in ninth place with a goal difference of +5, on the border of direct qualification to the next phase.
0
Emiliano Martínez, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, Diego Carlos, Matty Cash, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Leon Bailey (Jaden Philogene, min. 85), Boubacar Kamara (Ross Barkley, min. 77), Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins (Jhon Duran, min. 77)
0
Michele Di Gregorio, Pierre Kalulu, Nicolò Savona (Danilo, min. 65), Andrea Cambiaso, Federico Gatti, Kenan Yildiz (Samuel Mbangula, min. 81), Manuel Locatelli, Teun Koopmeiners, Khéphren Thuram (Nicolò Fagioli, min. 85) , Francisco Conceição and Timothy Weah
Referee Jesus Gil Manzano
yellow cards
Tielemans (9 min), Leon Bailey (11 min), Pau Torres (38 min), Pierre Kalulu Kyatengwa (44 min), Tim Weah (76 min), Teun Koopmeiners (92 min)
Emery faced an old friend whom he coached at PSG. The new Juventus coach traveled to England in trouble. His team is sixth in Serie A and the environmental pressure continues to grow against them. Fans and journalists demand that Juve play with the dynamism and joy of Bologna last season, but it is not enough to turn on the switch. The process is long. Many of the players are new. The plague of injuries doesn’t help; Vlahovic, Bremer, Cabral, Douglas Luiz… Given the uncertainty, Motta has chosen to stabilize the team in its midfield and defense. Juventus were never in disarray in Birmingham. He went out to the field to study the situation. What was found was a cautious adversary.
Gatti, Kalulu, Locatelli and Thuram, Juve’s centre-backs and pivots, came out playing determined to take care of the ball carefully. Since Villa stopped applying pressure after five minutes, lest they catch their midfielders’ backs, the visitors played and played in their field. The attacks continued. Those of Juve and those of Villa. The contrast was concentrated in the midfield. The rhythms slowed down. Both contenders favored the promptness of withdrawals over the boldness of deployments. Soon all the footballers involved discovered that they were participating in a common project. There was no need to agree on anything. It was enough to flow with the fluid in search of the definitive prize of the point. A point without stress.
Juve’s right winger stood out for his adventurous spirit among the visitors, just as Ollie Watkins threatened the Italian goal with his devilish spins. The English striker, one of the Premier’s most astute forwards, invented two instant shots. Di Gregorio prevented the first goal with a wonderful save. Locatelli deflected a shot from McGinn in the second half, coming off a counterattack. The flashes escaped the concert of prevailing pacifism. Probably the most fabulous action of the match was carried out by Emiliano Martínez, who took a header from Conceiçao over the line.
In the last minute the VAR annulled a goal against Villa for charging against Di Gregorio. It happened during a set piece, one of the specialties that make Emery a world reference. It could have been 1-0. But the video arbitration resolved the obvious and the match ended in the fairest way, given the meager production exhibited. As Emery would say: the result “is not so bad.”
