The former European champions, Juventus, will fly to France to measure forces with AS Monaco at Stade Louis II for the second leg of the Quarter-finals stage of the UEFA Champions League.
Last week, AS Monaco showed, in Italy, that they are definitely not pushovers as they forced Juventus to work extra hard to achieve their victory. The French side had plenty of chances to score (even more than Juve itself) but failed to overcome the Italian super-goalie, Gigi Buffon, who put up yet another class performance during the first-leg match. Although they didn’t had more ball possession, AS Monaco placed plenty more shots on Juve’s goal and managed to surprise the experienced Italian side with quick counter attacks that somehow exposed the frailties of the defensive line of Massimiliano Allegri’s team.
Leonardo Jardim, who is by the way doing a fantastic job with AS Monaco, will certainly not change many things for the second-leg match and will keep pushing his usual 4-3-3 style, based on quick counter-attacks in order to take something positive from the match.
AS Monaco are probably not enjoying their best of moments on domestic competitions and last weekend they failed once again to secure the three points as they conceded a 1-1 draw against Rennes at Stade Louis II.
As for Juventus, after their unexpected defeat at Ennio Tardini against Parma and after their unconvincing win over AS Monaco last week, the Vecchia Signora have pulled rank again against the surprising Lazio over the weekend. The former European champions won the match by 2-0 and have almost certainly secured the Serie A title once again.
Juventus’ recent performances have been far from impressive recently but the Vecchia Signora usually don’t make mistakes in big matches, as for example against Lazio last weekend and against Fiorentina early this month, where they showed all their quality.
Despite playing away from home and despite having several important players sidelined due to injury, Juventus are firm favourites to win next Wednesday’s clash and claim a place on the semi-finals stage of the competition.
