The coach after the loss at Atalanta: “When the game really heated up, we made the wrong decisions. But now I have to convince the guys that we didn’t play as badly as the score suggests”

The result is a tough one, but Luciano Spalletti kept his cool after his Juventus side’s 3-0 loss at Atalanta. “They were better than us at the key moments,” he told Sportmediaset. “And when you’re talking about a 3-0 loss, you just have to congratulate Palladino and the opposing players.”

After giving Atalanta the credit they deserve, Spalletti then analyzed his team’s performance: “Juve lacked precision and clarity in decisive moments tonight: when the game really came down to it, we often failed to make the right decisions.” The coach continued: “We have a few flaws, but we’re a team and we just need to fix these situations and learn to recognize when the game can turn around.” There was also room, however, for some criticism: “I didn’t like the end of the match, when we were scattered all over the field, with no order or logic. We were disorganized. Then, after the 1-0 lead, we had 4 or 5 chances and got ourselves into a mess: we’re a bit lacking in our ability to read certain situations and make the right choices.”

“Penalty? That’s not my job”—  He then offered a cryptic comment on the penalty that broke the deadlock, awarded for a handball by Bremer: “It’s a penalty because he touched it with his hand—that’s enough,” Spalletti said, half-seriously, half-jokingly. He then added, “It’s not my place to comment—my job is different. Now I just have to convince the guys that they didn’t play as badly as the result might suggest…”