Turin, another appointment for the history of the yellow submarine

“Juventus is one of the applicants, but we have come with the idea of ​​being able to stay.” Before playing one of the most important games of the season, Unai Emery is serious, confident and eager to overcome the Champions League tie against the Bianconeri team. It is not a final for the Basque coach, who assures that they do not consider that in the round of 16 it will be “all or nothing”. “If they beat us, the League will remain,” he argues. He seems calm when he breaks down Massimiliano Allegri’s team, “the biggest team in Italy”, and does not hesitate to point out the great “opportunity to be in Europe” for this Villarreal: “It’s wonderful”.

A complicated company in the magnificent Juventus Stadium, used to living days of wine and roses. Also in a Champions League that they dream of winning again now that striker Dusan Vlahovic excites his fans, somewhat upset after a poor start to the campaign. It will be, once again, the yellow submarine who will put the Serbian to the test, after a first act in which he proved to be up to the competition with a beautifully crafted goal in the first minute of the clash played at La Cerámica.

The fifteen consecutive games that they have gone without defeat in the Italian league are one of the best arguments for a Juventus that is presented as the favorite. Allegri, excited about the top European competition, does not hesitate to analyze the good moment from the growth and balance that the group is achieving. “You breathe a different air,” he says. With Giorgio Chiellini and Paulo Dybala again available for the coach, the goal for the Turin team is to defeat the “experienced” yellow team. “We will have to play a serious game and be hungry,” says Allegri.

It will also be a great opportunity for Villarreal, who arrive in good form and full of “confidence”, as Giovani Lo Celso acknowledges. The current champion of the Europa League, who could count on Raúl Albiol and Gerard Moreno -“we will have to be very careful with him”, says Emery about the latter- in Italy, already knows what it is to overcome this round -he has achieved it in the two occasions in which he has reached the round of 16 – something that, however, his coach has never achieved. In the town of Castellón there are many expectations placed on a team that in the domestic competition struggles to reach European positions and that, if it achieved the victory against Juventus, would give a new blow to the table of European football. One of the keys, admits the Argentine striker, will be “believing in the coach’s idea.”