Gianluigi Buffon amat berharap angka penuh dapat dipetik Juventus waktu menerima kedatangan AC Milan di giornata 6 (partai kelima) Serie A akhir pekan ini.
Laskar pimpinan Antonio Conte saat ini memegang tampuk capolista dengan status belum terkalahkan, tapi tanda tanya soal kapasitas Juve mengakhiri musim dengan scudetto di tangan belum juga hilang.
Karena itulah, pengoleksi 27 titel juara Serie A ini mesti menepis keraguan tersebut dengan menaklukkan Il Diavoli yang notabene berstatus juara bertahan.
Di mata Buffon, kemenangan di Juventus Stadium nanti juga bakal sangat berguna untuk menambah kepercayaan diri di ruang ganti La Vecchia Signora.
"Gim ini bakal mengungkapkan kepada kami [soal kekuatan tim]. Membukukan hasil positif adalah yang kami perlukan demi kepercayaan diri," tutur sang portiere kepada Football Italia.
"Intinya, kemenangan akan menghasilkan kepingan penting pada jalur perkembangan kami."
30 September 2011
Gigi Buffon Tekankan Pentingnya Kemenangan Atas Milan
Blog: Pro Pirlo-dependency
As Andrea Pirlo's past and present teams prepare to meet on Sunday, focus is all about his role at both clubs, as Rob Paton explains.
It is fair to say Juventus' start to the season has been a success. Being joint top of the League after four rounds is backed up with early signs of the team's refreshing capacity to rotate its squad members without drastically affecting performance levels.
From game to game, Antonio Conte has made nine changes to the starting XI, switched left-backs through suspension and formation and focus up front through various forwards. Evidence of an unaltered end product perhaps comes from the fact that each of the seven goals scored by the team had been by a different player.
However, there is one striking constant to have come from the opening weeks - Andrea Pirlo's overriding influence on proceedings. This ranges from the three assists he has provided - just under half the team's goals - to constant involvement in the team's efforts to always play the ball along the ground from goalkeeper to forward.
For the player, it has been a return to some of his best football, the type perhaps last seen taking such hold on games when with the national team during their run to World Cup success in 2006. He has returned to the pendulum style of play - taking possession and ably spraying balls to the right, left or over the top of opposition back-lines - effectively dictating both how and when his new Juve side attack.
Unsurprisingly came Pietro Lo Monaco's suggestion in the wake of Catania's 1-1 draw last weekend that Juve had, within a handful of games, grown to be 'Pirlo-dependent'. Vincenzo Montella placed a man-marker on Pirlo, Juve put in a less-than-inspiring performance.
It is timely then that the Pirlo-dependency debate arises as he prepares to face Milan in Week 6, the team whose success was once perceived a direct result of his talents, and whose latter deterioration was then thought the outcome of an over-reliance on him.
His success and end at Milan perhaps provides the greatest insight into the debate that Lo Monaco's words have created. The last three years saw the Rossoneri struggle to both protect a central midfield and central defence that was vulnerable to counter-attacking, and justify placing Pirlo in his preferred position in front of that defence.
Pirlo's absence through injury during 2010-11 coincided with Massimiliano Allegri's redevelopment of the Rossoneri central-midfield. In place of the playmaker's less-than-convincing defensive attributes stood one of Mark van Bommel and Massimo Ambrosini, whilst the former Cagliari Coach - aided significantly by summer spending - was able to shift creative responsibility away from Pirlo and on to the forwards.
By the time the No 21 was fit to challenge for a spot, Allegri's first edition of his Milan team had marginalised both the footballer's strengths and weaknesses. The defence was protected by a more solid brute force and the attack could now score goals without him.
However, what is important to note is that this was not Allegri's final intention with the side. The Coach admitted he was disappointed with Pirlo's decision to leave in the summer as he said he intended to focus developing a way of bringing out the best of him, whilst maintaining the side's strengths that had grown in his absence through 2010-11. Alberto Aquilani's arrival and Kevin Prince Boateng's projected shift back into midfield is evidence to this line of thought.
Allegri's tactics had created a Milan team that for the first time in a decade could win without Pirlo. However, their start to 2011-12 with minimal selections in attack and subsequent struggles to break down teams, when put alongside Pirlo's form at Juve, backs up Allegri's belief that his team still had room and a need for the playmaker.
As such, at Juventus, the season is about - perhaps more than anything else - ensuring that the team learns from Allegri's Milan. That is say, that they both allow Pirlo to play as he can, which as he has proven still carries a heavy influence on team performance, and that they have a plan B that can operate, crucially, with the playmaker still on the pitch.
Allegri said he was developing this at Milan, and former Bianconero Aquilani's progress therefore becomes very interesting to track this season, in effect acting as what-might-have-been for a Milanese Pirlo.
For Juve short term, to a certain extent, Lo Monaco's reactionary comments are right - Juve are Pirlo-dependent. At this time. It is too early to declare them completely reliant on Pirlo, until the wingers and full-backs have had time to develop an understanding, and Alessandro Del Piero, Alessandro Matri, Fabio Quagliarella and Mirko Vucinic have formulated strike-partnerships.
Indeed, it is also too early to panic that Pirlo's influence is too great on the team. It would have been a far worse quandary for Conte had the 32-year-old player on a €3.5m net, three-year deal proved to be over the hill.
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