The former PSG midfielder has made his mark on the Juve bench. There is still plenty of room for improvement ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Lille.
A fresh breeze caressed the bucolic village of Vinovo, in the heart of the Piedmont region, where the Juventus training center is located. After so many years under the tutelage of curator Massimiliano Allegri (2014-2019 then 2021-2024), the Bianconeri welcomed Thiago Motta to the bench this summer42. A former midfielder, the Brazilian-Italian, who made 231 appearances for Paris Saint-Germain, is preparing to return to France, to Villeneuve-d’Ascq to face Lille in the Champions League this Tuesday (9pm).
It came as no surprise to anyone when, in the wake of his retirement from the game, Motta took over the reins of PSG’s Under-19 team in the summer of 2018. As a player, he was the sentinel in front of the defense. A control tower who sees everything, anticipates, guides with his silky left paw. A guarantor of stability. A notion he hasn’t experienced since his conversion, with five teams in six years. He spent just one season in Paris, failed at Genoa (10 matches before being sacked), failed to convince at La Spezia and got his career off the ground at Bologna.
Motta has it all to do again at Juventus
When he arrived in Turin, Motta announced that he wanted to “please the fans”. That’s what he did at Bologna over the course of two seasons, lifting the club from the doldrums to the top 5 of Serie A and qualifying them for the Champions League for the first time since 1965. With Juve, the promise was ambitious.
The native of São Bernardo do Campo (Brazil) and former Italian international (30 caps) landed at the country’s biggest club, boasting 36 league titles and recent success: nine titles in a row between 2012 and 2020. But it was also the home of Allegri, apostle of a defensive, minimalist style that earned him criticism for many years. And it was a house in freefall, with results plummeting over the last four years. a points penalty in Serie A for accounting fraud and exclusion from the European Cups for breaches of UEFA rules.
Massimo Pinca / REUTERS
At Juve, Motta has fashioned a team in his own image, similar to that seen at Bologna: a desire to have the ball, dominate, know how to be patient and play physically, even to the limit of the rules if necessary. “We want to do a lot and sometimes we don’t manage to do what we want. We have to keep the balance”.analysed Motta after the draw against Parma on October 30 (2-2). There is one cause for satisfaction: Juve are the only unbeaten team in Serie A. The problem? More draws (6) than wins (5).
Second youngest team in Serie A
Brick by brick, Motta is building his own edifice at the Old Lady with the second-youngest squad in Italy (average age 25). He is not helped by injuries. Turin’s best defender, Bremer, has been the victim of an injury. a ruptured cruciate ligament in his left knee in October. Midfielder Douglas Luiz, bought for €50m, has been out for four matches, as has winger Nico Gonzalez and former Marseille striker Arkadiusz Milik. underwent knee surgery a month ago..
Juve can count on their defensive solidity, albeit weakened without Bremer, and their Serbian centre-forward Dusan Vlahovic (8 goals in 14 matches). “We need to improve collectively, show more solidarity and be more aggressive”.demanded Motta. On the right track in Serie A (5th) in the standings), the Bianconeri are also in the Champions League (6 pts in three matches), despite a final hiccup against Stuttgart (0-1). LOSC, on the other hand, have two prestigious victories to their name, against Real Madrid (1-0) and at Atlético (1-3). But Bruno Genesio wary of his counterpart “who, already as a player, had a very, very important tactical culture“. And he’ll need to show it off if he’s to avoid the Dogues’ trap.