Spalletti Takes Blame for Juventus' Loss at Sassuolo
Luciano Spalletti did not look for excuses. He walked into the interview zone after Juventus’ defeat at Sassuolo and went straight to the point: this one hurt, and a lot of it was on him.
“It hurts a lot because the guys deservedly turned the game around,” he admitted. “We lost our balance, and that's something you can't do.”
Juventus had dragged themselves back into the match, wrestled momentum away, and looked set to leave with something more than frustration. Instead, ambition tipped into excess. The coach laid bare how it happened.
“The players tried to go and win it. I was the one who pushed them to go and win this game,” Spalletti said. “Perhaps they followed what I asked a little too literally, because in the end we had too many players pushing into the Sassuolo box.”
The image is clear: bodies flooding forward, shirts piling into the area, structure stretched to breaking point. Juventus chased the win and left the door wide open.
Spalletti, though, refused to turn that hunger into a flaw.
“You also have to take the positive intention from the team,” he insisted. “We lost because we were giving all we could to win it and not draw. Of course, there's definitely some responsibility on our part, but it all came from the desire to go and win the game.”
It was a painful lesson in risk and reward. Juventus chose risk. Sassuolo punished them.
Vicario: “Regret and anger”
From the pitch, the feeling was no softer. Guglielmo Vicario echoed his coach’s analysis, but with the raw edge of a player who had lived every minute of it.
“We’re really disappointed,” the goalkeeper said. “I understand the desire to go and win the game because Juventus have an obligation to do that, but we lost our balance and it's something we'd spoken about during the week.”
That last line will sting inside the dressing room. This was not a surprise flaw exposed for the first time; it was a danger flagged in advance, then repeated under pressure.
“There's regret and anger because the game had turned in our favour,” Vicario added. “We need to be a little more careful because we're a team with a lot of quality.”
Quality is not the issue. Control is. Juventus showed they can tilt a game back their way. The question now is whether they can do it without tipping themselves over the edge.
