Serie A 2018/19: Fiorentina vs Juventus

The rivalry between Fiorentina and Juventus goes back a few decades and is perhaps the most fierce rivalry in Italy with clubs from different cities. On Saturday, the two clubs faced off yet again and Juventus produced a mightily impressive performance to leave Florence with a 3-0 win and three further points to stretch their lead at the top ahead of Napolis clash in Bergamo on Monday night. This tactical analysis will look at both sides pressing schemes and Massimiliano Allegris in-game tweaks which helped Juve dominate the game.

Teams

Fiorentina set up in a slightly more controlled fashion with Stefano Pioli preferring central midfielder Gerson on the right of his three-man attack in place of Marko Pjaca, Kevin Mirallas or Valentin Eysseric. The hybrid 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 formation remained with Marco Benassi the most attacking of the three midfielders. Importantly, German Pezzella was back in central defence alongside Vitor Hugo.

Allegri set up without Miralem Pjanic and Alex Sandro and surprisingly opted for Juan Cuadrado to replace the Bosnian midfielder. This meant Rodrigo Bentancur was deployed as the defensive midfielder behind Cuadrado and Blaise Matuidi. Mattia De Sciglio replaced Sandro with Joao Cancelo moving to left-back. Up front, the impressive trio of Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Dybala and Mario Mandzukic remained in Allegris fluid 4-3-1-2.

Fiorentinas pressing

Pioli opted for a man-orientated pressing scheme when Juventus looked to build from the back. We can see this setup in the image below. The Fiorentina players pick up a direct opponent and looked to lock Juve in and overload around the ball.

As you see in the below image, Fiorentina really went after Juves players. The front six went really high when pressing to disrupt Juves build-up play from the back.

The high-pressing was very successful, initially. Fiorentina managed to win the ball in dangerous areas on a number of occasions. One of them is the situation below when Bentancur received the ball with his back turned against the play. Fiorentina midfielders, Jordan Veretout and Edimilson Fernandes are already on their way towards the Uruguayan. Fernandes wins the ball and starts a counter-attack but as on most occasions, Fiorentinas counters lacked the quality to carve Juve open.