Juventus 3 – Maccabi Haifa 1: Initial reaction and random observations

It could all have been very routine.

Hell, this should all have been very routine based on the simple number of chances Juventus had to put things away well before the final stretch of Wednesday night’s matchup came at the Juventus Stadium. But here we were, deep in the second half, watching Maccabi push Haifa hard for a potential decisive goal, and probably in a deserved way too.

Then the wrath of Rabiot came down.

A brace from Adrien Rabiot and a trio of fantastic assists from Angel Di Maria gave Juventus their first three Champions League points of the season with a 3-1 win over Maccabi Haifa. It wasn’t quite decided until Rabiot scored his second goal of the evening in the 83rd minute with a header from a Di Maria corner kick and that certainly made more than a few people sweat because Juventus had the chance to actually turn things around to end.

Why? Because they didn’t look good and Juve were certainly held back as the 70th, 75th and then 80th minutes came and went.

But then we scored Rabiot’s goal to ease the nervousness that gripped J-Stadium as Juve’s narrow one-goal advantage became increasingly threatened in the second half.

One almost wants to sing about the man who scored the first and third goals of the night when Juve can actually be satisfied with the European Cup result.

Ah, but at this point the most important thing here is that Juventus win the Champions League this season. Sure, it would have been nice if either Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica actually clinched a win on Wednesday night, rather than the other two members of Group H sharing the points in Lisbon. But Juve can’t be greedy at the moment as they try to dig their way out of that pre-season hole they put themselves in.

It’s three points.

No matter how they got there, it’s three points.

And for the first time this season, Juventus have won two games in a row in all competitions.

It’s not something you expect to first write about in the early days of October, but it is the reality of the Juventus season. It was a fight – and more importantly, a fight against opponents you wouldn’t necessarily think it was meant to be. Was that performance against Maccabi perfect? Well obviously not but compared to what we saw against PSG and Benfica it’s an improvement. Just like what we saw of this team against Bologna over the weekend, it was better than what we saw throughout September.

That doesn’t mean Juve are BACK or anything, but it’s two wins – and one in the Champions League – for a team that was in dire need of something good or risked this season falling further into oblivion.

Now Max Allegri’s squad head into a meeting with the reigning Serie A champions with at least some positive thoughts compared to what we’ve seen – who with all his injuries have been absolutely hammered by Chelsea at the moment of much September.

It’s a small step, but it’s a step. And no reverse. I’ll take that as an alternative.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS

• Another night where the East Stand at J Stadium is far from full. I think that’s something we should pretty much expect, whether it’s in Serie A or the Champions League at this point, until Juve’s form improves seriously.
• Adrien Rabiot got a Sofascore rating of 9.6 against Maccabi Haifa. Nine point six, folks!

• But if you take a closer look at the stats outside the two goals, Rabiot had a hell of a night. If only this version of Rabiot showed up more often then it would be perfectly fine to pay him the money that Juventus pay him annually.
• Can you imagine if this is the game where Rabiot catches fire and begins a contract season where he gets another huge payday? What a ride that would be.
• Aside from assisting Rabiot’s first goal, Di Maria had a pretty memorable first half. Not only because of his two assists in the second half, but Di Maria was the world-class talent that Juve thought they were going to get when they signed him after the break. What a world of difference the half made, as Holy Smokes was Di Maria cooking on gas in the second half.
• Not only the fact that it was three assists, but the quality of the passes that he delivered to those goals was just top, top level stuff. Let’s just hope that gets his season going.
• Dusan Vlahovic has now scored two goals in as many games. Anyone who watched Wednesday night’s game well knows that Vlahovic should have scored much more than just a goal. It should have been at least two, probably three, and that might be an underestimate given the number of good chances Vlahovic had against Maccabi. But the fact that no matter who the opponent was, he had so many chances to get on the scoresheet could be one of the most important things to come out of this game. Vlahovic is too good not to pass on the chances he missed.
• Seriously, give Vlahovic that many chances to score most of the time and he looks like the guy who has been scoring consistently at Fiorentina in his 2021 calendar year. This guy… this guy was really good.
• Wojciech Szczesny was put in a difficult position at the Maccabi Gate. I personally felt that he was a bit too aggressive because I thought Bremer would have a chance to recover and slow down the counterattack. But when you hit the ball so hard and so aggressively, as a Szczesny you have to get in touch with it somehow. Blow all the way on the ball just isn’t good.
• This man Omer Atzili came on as a second-half substitute and almost turned the game upside down. Hitting the post once is tough, but hitting it three times in about 20 minutes? That’s just brutal.
• Juan Cuadrado Washed Watch continues. He had some decent moments, but he also had some of those moments that we see more and more these days. It’s worrying, definitely worrying.
• Leandro Paredes with a 95 percent success rate. This will play.
• I don’t know about you guys, but I’m very glad this didn’t turn into a game where we’re sitting here a few minutes after the final whistle and wanting to bang our heads against the wall for hours because Juve just scores dropped because they were terrible outside the gate. They weren’t great either, but this certainly beats the more negative alternative.
• However, Manuel Locatelli almost scores from midfield and I would have lost my mind if that had actually happened.