Covid storm and angry Juventus: Udinese must go beyond all this

The Friulians, with the men counted in defense, aim to move the ranking before the delicate away match against Genoa

UDINE. The starting return schedule was difficult for Udinese, we knew this. To make everything more damned complicated was Covid which decimated Cioffi’s team before the match against Atalanta and which certainly did not allow us to prepare properly for tonight’s away match at Juventus.

The club, which took care to announce the positive players before and after the match against Bergamo, did not release the squad list yesterday. Speaking of training, therefore, seems at least risky. “I have had the whole team available for two days,” said coach Gabriele Cioffi during the presentation. It seems, however, that a couple of players (Silvestri and Molina) have remained in Udine.

Add to this the disqualification of Becao and the impossibility of deploying the latest arrival Benkovic after the departures of Samir and De Maio, and here is that the defense alarm cannot fail to sound in the Friulian house.

The most probable solution is that which involves the use of Perez on the center right and the sliding of Zeegelaar on the center left, a position in which the Dutchman had been tried last season on a few occasions by Gotti. The alternative is the four-man defensive line that Cioffi tried this week, but which had not given good results under the previous technical management.

However we will play and this is already news considering that Udinese had started the week with nine positive players. He will do so in the home of Juventus who have returned from the defeat in the Italian Super Cup with Inter, but which in the league from November to today out of ten games has won seven draws, two (1-1 with Venice and Naples) and lost one (all ‘Allianz Stadium with Atalanta 1-0). In short, Allegri’s band accumulated everything at the beginning, for over two months he has been traveling quickly: he does not score much, but suffers very little.

Of course, the Old Lady is back from an important physical effort like the one on Wednesday night with Inter when she remained on the field for 120 intense minutes, but Allegri has the possibility of making large rotations (compared to San Siro he should change six or seven starters) and Udinese cannot physically be the one who played on par with Milan before Christmas and scored four goals in Cagliari.

As Cioffi said, you have to grit your teeth and go beyond your limits: it is true that Udinese have two games to recover, but the ranking has already taken on “dangerous” connotations: Spezia has arrived at minus 1, Cagliari at minus 4 and in the next round Udinese will still be away against Genoa. Going to Marassi with a positive result from Turin would give the challenge with the Griffin less anxious contours.