Although he’s only returned to the club less than a month ago, Igor Tudor has already made his presence felt at Juventus, as portrayed by the club’s first three displays under his stewardship.
The 46-year-old knows the club inside out, having spent the bulk of his playing days in Turin. He also served as Andrea Pirlo’s assistant manager during the 2020/21 campaign.
So after deciding to show Thiago Motta the door last month, the management identified the defender as the ideal profile to restore the club’s lost soul.
The team certainly responded positively to the change. After all, the former Juventus manager wasn’t the most popular figure in the dressing room, as reported by several sources.
But in addition to changing the mood at Contanissa, Tudor’s arrival also prompted a major tactical overhaul.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (via JuventusNews24) puts it, the new manager has already erased the word ‘horizontal’ from the club’s vocabulary.
During Motta’s ill-fated stint, Juventus often struggled to advance the play, instead settling for sterile horizontal passes that left their supporters frustrated.
But with Tudor now in charge, the team is no longer wasting time in possession, but instead opting for a direct approach, launching the ball forward with vertical plays.
This noticeable change was illustrated by Juve’s two goals against Lecce on Saturday night. Kenan Yildiz’s winner over Genoa a couple of weeks ago was also a perfect depiction of the team’s new mentality.
So even though the Bianconeri still have a long way to go in their recovery path, the early signs under Tudor have been encouraging enough.
With the Croatian in charge, the Bianconeri have collected seven points out of a possible nine. In addition to the slim home victories over Genoa and Lecce, they registered a 1-1 draw against the in-form Roma at the Stadio Olimpico.
