Monaco 0-2 Juventus, 5 Talking Points: UEFA Champions League 2016/17
Juventus beat Monaco at the Stade Louis II by two goals to leave France with an advantage in the Champions League semi-final tie. Both goals were scored by Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain with one in each half as a masterful tactical display from the Italian side saw them come out victorious against the highly rated Monaco attack.
Juventus are now the favourites to reach the final as they’ll take a two-goal away lead to Turin for the second leg next week.
Also read: Player ratings from Juventus’ win over Monaco
Here are the talking points from the game:
#1 A tactical mismatch in the opening exchanges
In the first 15 minutes of the game, Juventus got the better of Monaco, particularly in a tactical sense. Monaco’s wingbacks found it difficult to deal with Juventus’ wingers running inside towards their centre-backs and that dragged them centrally. Consequently, it left huge pockets of space on the flanks for Juventus to exploit and the Old Lady’s wingbacks Dani Alves and Alex Sandro found themselves in great positions to whip in crosses.
Naturally, the Monaco wingbacks Sidibe and Dirar needed the support of their wingers but that did not happen. It resulted in Juventus creating a few chances early on and exposed the frailties of Monaco’s four-man back line against multiple runners for Juventus.