Spalletti wants Juventus given the point

Luciano Spalletti came out of Juventus’ 2-1 Europa League win at AZ Alkmaar pleased with the result and annoyed by the habit that follows it. When Juventus win, he argued, the performance is too often reduced to the supposed weakness of the other side. The match in Alkmaar offered him evidence for the opposite.

AZ had gone 17 European home games without defeat, according to Football Italia, and Juventus still left with the points after building a two-goal lead through Teun Koopmeiners and Randal Kolo Muani. That should have been the comfortable part of the story. It was not the whole of it. Mexx Meerdink pulled one back after Lloyd Kelly was caught on the touchline, and AZ then had an added-time equaliser ruled out for offside.

That final stretch mattered because it sharpened Spalletti’s point. Juventus were good enough to control much of the game, but not clean enough to close it quietly. A side that can press high, create the better positions and still spend the closing minutes scrambling is a side living on decisions. Spalletti’s own reading was blunt: the problem was not simply managing the lead better, but failing to score the third goal while the game was there to be killed.

He also used the occasion to push back against the way European opposition is discussed when an Italian side wins. He referenced the 5-0 victory over NEC and noted that NEC now have seven points in the competition. His complaint was less vanity than competitive context. If Juventus are judged only by what they fail to do in winning positions, then the difficulty of the fixture disappears. Spalletti was insisting the difficulty remained real.

That is worth taking seriously because the details support him. Kolo Muani set up Koopmeiners against his hometown club, then scored the second himself, and Juventus had enough attacking thrust to make AZ chase. Yet the late anxiety also supported another of Spalletti’s themes: hesitation can be more damaging than a wrong choice. He singled out the concession of AZ’s goal as the kind of moment he does not want to see again, with players waiting rather than acting.

There was praise mixed into the irritation. Spalletti pointed to the “dirty work” done by defenders out of position and to the courage of a team willing to push into AZ’s half and accept one-against-one duels. He was also struck by goalkeeper Jari De Busser’s distribution, suggesting Italian football still underrates how a goalkeeper with the ball can break a press before it starts. That observation was not decoration. Juventus had to beat a side that could play through them, not merely run around them.

The result also continues a steadier spell after the Serie A win over Napoli. Football Italia reported Juventus now have three Europa League wins and a draw with Rennes, which is enough to make this more than an isolated away performance. Still, Spalletti’s mood after Alkmaar was not triumph. It was the mood of a coach who saw authority for 70 minutes and uncertainty after that, and knows both will matter before the group is settled.

Juventus leave with the win, and with a cleaner argument than the score alone gives them. They played well enough to earn credit and loosely enough at the end to be warned by it.