Juventus 2 – Udinese 0: Initial reaction and random observations

Thankfully, Juventus’ first foray into the Coppa Italia this season didn’t go anywhere close to how their last fixture in the competition went about nine months earlier.

Business taken care of, folks. Feels great to think that kind of way as compared to the alternative.

That’s because Juventus beat Udinese 2-0 on Tuesday night to advance to the Coppa Italia quarterfinals where either Atalanta or Genoa await in the quarterfinals. It was the kind of win that we hadn’t seen much of this season — a Juventus that was in control and barely let the opposition do much of anything going forward. As much as a couple of Udinese’s best chances were ruled out for offside (thanks to VAR or without VAR), you could say the same thing about a pair of goals that Juventus thought they had scored in the game. Ultimately, a Udinese own goal and a Manuel Locatelli goal from the penalty spot — the third of that kind against Udinese this season — proved to the different as Juve clinched the win in an incredibly comfortable kind of way.

And … exhale.

Just go ahead and exhale because there was no Coppa Italia craziness on this night.

Juventus were the favorites to win. Juventus ended up getting the win and did so with some room to spare regardless of how many goals were chalked off by VAR being completely frustrating like only that whole system can promise to be.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t have been so stressed no matter how Juve’s season has gone to date. Why? Because sometimes there’s facts that speak for themselves …

A perfect 18 for 18 dating back nearly two decades? My goodness, that’s pretty good! Considering the date that this goes back to, it’s not like there were some vintage Juventus squads in there, either. You know, kinda like this Juventus team. But this is what we all expect Juventus to do at this stage of the Coppa Italia. The matchups are set up for the big clubs to advance even with the expected squad rotation that comes with it. And even as Luciano Spalletti said that there would be a good amount of squad rotation against Udinese — and he delivered on that for the most part — but also made it known just how much Juve needed to win this one as well.

Those are both givens. But there’s also part of this team that doesn’t always do what they say they know they need to do going into a game.

But on this night, Juventus made things look relatively smooth just as they did when Udinese visited the Allianz about five weeks ago. This time it was Spalletti on the sidelines and not Massimo Brambilla, but the showing that Juve put out there even with the lineup changes were sound and they were in control of things from the beginning onward. With all the possession they had — especially early — you would have liked there to be more scoring chances created, but Udinese weren’t given much of a chance to do anything at all. Michele Di Gregorio, back in the starting lineup after being ill pretty much all of last week, barely had anything to do and didn’t need to record a single save on the night.

And once Juve got the opening goal on what looked like Jonathan David’s second goal in a week before it was officially ruled on own goal, it felt like only one of those classic Bianconeri screwups would be the thing that prevents them from moving on to the Coppa Italia quarterfinals.

Udinese never got that break, thanks in part to the offside working in Juve’s favor.

No matter what, though, we’re still talking about Juve being in the Coppa Italia and moving on to the quarterfinals. Now just don’t mention what happened in the quarterfinals last season and we’ll be good.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• As much as Spalletti sounded happy with this performance, he said that Juve need to be more ruthless. Seeing off a very winnable game earlier and being ruthless? That sounds wonderful! Where do I sign up? At least be the second signature on that list after Spalletti, of course.

• Personally, I feel like this trend of a Juventus player getting hurt every game needs to end. First Dusan Vlahovic, now Federico Gatti. Who’s next? I am scared to find out!

• Going to Naples this weekend with two healthy center backs seems like a situation that is very much far from ideal. A memo to Gleison Bremer and big Dan Rugani: please get healthy as soon as possible.

• It’s the 15th minute and Juventus has 80% of the possession.

• Over that same time period, Juve had three or four shots. Sooooo … coulda been more!

• Is this the best overall game that Jonathan David has had since joining Juventus? Yeah, I feel pretty safe in saying that. And that sure does feel good to see knowing that Juve are going to be without Vlahovic for the next couple of months at least. He didn’t get a goal — thanks for that own goal, guys! — but he sure did so many other good things to make you feel a little more encouraged after this one.

• Now, for David, it just has to continue. That’s the most obvious thing I’ve said on this blog in a while. I think.

• The one gripe I have with Spalletti in this game is resting Kenan Yildiz. I don’t know the reasoning behind it, but if you have a chance to rest your best player and still have a very good chance of winning, you go ahead and do it. Juventus could have gotten by without Yildiz against Udinese and given him a full week off going into the biggest domestic fixture outside of the Derby d’Italia to date. Oh well.

• Is it safe to say that Edon Zhegrova, a lot like Yildiz, comes from the school of wanting to destroy and embarrass opposing defenders as much as possible? I think so. And here’s more proof of that:

• Edon, my dude, just get those fitness levels up so we can enjoy your crafty footwork for more than 10 or 15 minutes a game (or week). There’s so much potential for good things with you on the field because we’ve seen that happen already. Now we just need it for an entire half or maybe, just maybe, from the opening kickoff a few times over the next month or two.

• This was Weston McKennie’s 200th game in a Juventus jersey.

• This was Manuel Locatelli’s 201st game in a Juventus jersey.

• For McKennie, he sure did deserve an assist on that opening (own) goal. That was an absolutely beautiful ball to David. If only it didn’t take that little deflection and we could have had some official CONCACAF link-up happening for the first time this season.

• Oh, and McKennie also led Juventus in tackles against Udinese. That’s just Wes being Wes.

• Udinese’s first shot didn’t happen until the 47th minute. More of that sounds like a good idea. Especially the fact that none of the four shots Udinese had against Juventus were actually on goal.

• We got to actually see Joao Mario play? Am I helusinating?

• More Fabio Miretti, please.

• Teun Koopmeiners back in the midfield? Sounds good to me.

• Pierre Kalulu, a guy who also probably needs a rest, continues to just be so sound defensively. At some point he will get a rest, but until then just keep on doing what you’re doing, my dude.

• Now we can turn all of the attention over to facing Napoli this weekend. They’re not untouchable by any means, and Antonio Conte has shown to have some issues with this squad this season. It’s going to be a big ask, but Juve going to southern Italy with three wins in the span of eight days feels like as good as we could have asked entering Spalletti’s first game at the Maradona since leading Napoli to their first title in three decades. It’s going to be an interesting Sunday night, my friends.