On Thursday, February 16, the Allianz Stadium in Turin will host the first match of the preliminary round of the UEFA Europa League football playoffs, in which Turin’s Juventus and France’s Nantes will play. The starting whistle of the Portuguese referee João Pedro Pinheira will sound at 22:00 Kyiv time.
Juventus
In the period between the end of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the resumption of European competitions, representatives of the leading countries of football Europe tried to play football enthusiastically. However, the Turin Juventus again found its own exclusive path, and the Italian giant once again found itself at the epicenter of a grandiose scandal related to financial fraud.
Europe, as a whole, is now shaking quite strongly in the fiscal context, but while the French Paris Saint-Germain and the English Manchester City are only getting hints of possible problems, the Zebras have already been knocked down by the deduction of 15 points in championship, and in the near future they may receive either another penalty in terms of points scored, or even exclusion from Serie A.
It is obvious that in such conditions there is no need to think about any future. Already now it seems that the Bianconeri will miss the next European Cup campaign for obvious reasons. However, there is another interesting option, in which a potential participant in Serie B will be in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. To do this, Juventus will have to jump above their heads, starting to show stable results in the relegation battle format.
Fortunately, the head coach of Turin, Massimiliano Allegri, just specializes in high-quality psychological work with the team. It is enough to look only at the recent Juve match against Roman Lazio in the Coppa Italia (1:0), although shortly before that Maurizio Sarri’s team simply destroyed Milan in their field (4:0). The Zebras are having a good season in the league right now, and since they really don’t have anything in Serie A, European competition remains a rare opportunity to show off.
Nantes
In none of the European leagues, the ninth team, following the results of the next national championship draw, gets a ticket to European competitions, unless it also complies with an additional condition. The victory in the French Cup gives the victorious team the opportunity to go directly to the group stage of the UEFA Europa League, which Nantes took advantage of in the last campaign.
It was really a great success for Antoine Comboiret’s team, which then methodically dealt with Monaco and Nice on the way to the coveted trophy. Many may say that the tournament bracket for the “canaries” was not so difficult, and they will be right, but this does not in any way reduce their contribution to success. One way or another – the first high-profile victory since winning the 2001/02 League Cup.
However, the beginning of the current campaign for the “yellows” was simply terrible. Comboiret’s team failed at the very start, when victories over Toulouse and Olympiacos were their only victories in almost four months. At the same time, the club’s management retained faith in the head coach, and gradually the team began to gain defense.
They realized it, by the way, just in time, otherwise they would not have left the Europa League group with Freiburg and Qarabag in the squad, which would have been akin to failure. By the way, “Nantes” secured the Eurospring with an almost twofold advantage in the number of goals conceded over goals scored (11 vs. 6), which can say a lot about the game model of this team.
Estimated compositions
Juventus: Shchesny – Alex Sandro, Bremer, Danilo – Kostic, Rabio, Locatelli, Fagioli, Cuadrado – Di Maria – Vlahovic.
“Nantes”: Lafont – Hadjam, Girotto, Castelletto, Sentonz – Mutoussami, Sissoko – Hessan, Mollet, Bla – Delors.
Out: Ihattaren, Milik, Miretti, Peters, Pogba, Cayo, Bonucci – Merlin, Ganago, Simon.
Forecast for confrontation
We believe that in the upcoming game the hosts will be closer to success with productive football. Our bet will be the position – Juventus will not lose and TB 2.5 with a coefficient of 2.02 through the Parimatch line.
February 16, Thursday
“Juventus” – “Nantes”
Turin. Allianz Stadium. 22:00 Live TV broadcast – MEGOGO video service
Arbitrator: Joao Pedro Pinheiro (Portugal) Forecast Aroged – 2:1
