It’s not just a matter of three points: it’s a victory worth much more. And it is all signed by Igor Tudor
Juve, il cerchio si stringe: le opzioni per la panchina ora sono due (Foto: LaPresse/Ansa) – serieanews.com
There are games that are not weighed with points. Those count too, especially at this time of the season, but there is also something that goes far beyond the standings, beyond the Champions race, beyond even that nasty end-of-season anxiety that has now become a traveling companion in Turin.
Juventus’ win in Lecce is one of those there. Three points? Sure. Fundamental. But within those ninety minutes there is much more. There is a technical heritage that breathes again. There is a team that stops, at least for a moment, looking like an investment gone bad. There is Igor Tudor, above all. A guy who may not make poetry, but he knows a lot about accounts.
You could tell right away, in the opening period, when Teun Koopmeiners’ goal came. A goal that made noise, yes, but not so much for the feat itself – beautiful, mind you – but for everything it carried with it. Because Koopmeiners, for months, had been a bit of an emblem of Juventus not working.
Paid over 60 million last summer, arriving as a man capable of making a difference, he had slowly ended up fading away. Too far from the goal, too sacrificed, too out of phase. Many had already begun to wonder if it had not been a resounding blunder to bring him to Turin.
Juve, il sogno è Antonio Conte, ma Tudor resta una possibilità
Instead, Tudor did a simple thing, which sometimes seems revolutionary: he put him back next to Vlahovic, gave him back balls, confidence, presence. And Teun responded as a real player. As an investment that returns investment. As a resource that is by no means lost.
Juve, il sogno è Antonio Conte, ma Tudor resta una possibilità (AnsaFoto) – serieanews.com
And the same applies, after all, to Kenan Yildiz. Who also did not do badly, eh. Indeed, crazy season for a boy not even 20 years old, able to take on his shoulders a Juve often deflated of ideas.
But in recent weeks he, too, seemed a bit discolored. Of those talents who are known to be valuable, but who must continue to shine to stay in the heads (and notebooks) of Europe’s big clubs.
Two games with Tudor and Yildiz came back on. He’s scored, he’s cut in, he’s reminded everyone why someone around is willing to put 70 million on the table for him. Maybe, if he keeps it up, even a little more, although Juventus seems to want to do everything to preserve its talent in the number 10 jersey.
And then there is Dusan Vlahovic. Here, rather than an investment to be recovered, he seemed almost a ghost to be exorcised. The Motta management had turned him into a goal-less, ball-less, joyless center forward. In a word: worthless, or at any rate of crashed value. In Lecce he did not score. But he served two perfect balls for his teammates. Two gestures that tell much more than many forced jubilations.
It is still too early to say he is back to his best days. But at least he is back inside the team. Inside the game. Inside himself. Yes, Juve-Lecce was important, a three-point challenge. But those who know soccer know it was much more. It was a 200 million victory. And it also passes the fear.
This article Tudor, that’s how it’s done: it’s a 200 million win appeared in its original version first on SerieANews.
