Juventus will open up their Champions League campaign when they host Dutch champions PSV at the Allianz Stadium.
Juventus are back in the Champions League after a one year absence with a new manager and new identity. Thiago Motta takes over after an impressive season at Bologna to try and turn Juventus back into one of the elites in Europe. They struggled on the weekend against Empoli, drawing 0-0, and they will have to be much better offensively to get all three points.
This is the second consecutive season in the Champions League for PSV after making it to the round of 16 last year. They comfortably won the Eredivisie in Peter Bosz's first season in charge, but they showed in the Champions League that things are a lot more difficult that they are in the Netherlands.
Let's dive into Juventus vs PSV prediction in my Champions League picks.
Juventus vs PSV Odds
| Juventus Odds | -125 |
| PSV Odds | +333 |
| Draw | +290 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -125 / +100 |
Juventus Preview
Thiago Motta has taken over at Juventus, but there is one key aspect that has remained the same. They are one of the better low block defending teams in the world. So far through four Serie A matches they have not conceded a goal and have allowed a total of 1.4 expected goals.
That is not surprising given the defensive set up Motta had with Bologna. Like Allegri, Motta doesn’t really believe in pressing opponents high and instead looks to set his team up in a good defensive shape with the aim of limiting opponents to the lowest quality shots possible. His Bologna team only allowed an xG per shot of 0.08, which was third-lowest in Serie A. So the same defensive concepts and even structure hasn’t really changed from Allegri’s team that only allowed 0.73 npxG per 90 minutes.
In possession, Motta’s build up structure is quite interesting, as he is a big believer in relationism, which is essentially positionless football, trying to get as many players close to the ball to ensure you always are, overloading the opposition through each phase of build up.
There are a couple of issues with it, though. First, the pace of it is really slow. Because you are relying on a lot of short passes, there aren’t many quick direct balls being played forward to open up the defense. In addition to that, oftentimes you have too many guys in one area of the pitch, so the ball goes backwards and they have to start over. Second, it’s very hard to find space and overload defenses once you reach the final third. Juventus are already struggling to steadily create chances, as they’re averaging under one expected goal per 90 minutes, which is the same problem Bologna had.
PSV Preview
PSV are the Dutch champions and it really all comes down to Peter Bosz’s tactics. He wants his teams to play as fast as possible with their transitions, using vertical passes to try and put pressure on the opposing back line. He encourages his fullbacks to push up and overlap, which allows PSV to overload the last line of defense.
When PSV are out of possession, they are one of the most aggressive pressing teams in Europe. He adopts the same principles of gegenpressing as Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, trying to win the ball back as fast as possible when they lose it. To think they are going to go to Turin and play that type of style is another story. We’ve seen this before when they played Arsenal out of the gates in the Champions League last year and failed to do anything offensively, creating 0.5 expected goals.
What we have seen from Bosz in the Champions League specifically is he mainly wants his teams to try to create 3 v 2 or 2 v 1 overloads out wide to try and attack the space and send in crosses. Good luck doing that against Juventus, who have a 65% defensive aerial duel win rate so far this season.
Juventus vs PSV
Prediction
PSV are going to want to push the tempo in this match, but I don't think Juventus are going to let them do that. Even if PSV decide to consistently press high, the Juventus build up is slow and they have shown so far that they are just as inefficient in the final third as Thiago Motta's Bologna were last season.
Motta is also not a big believer in pressing teams high. He would much rather have his team in a really solid mid to low defensive block, which has been really successful to begin this season considering they have not conceded a goal yet.
While PSV put up incredible offensive numbers in the Eredivisie, they have shown in the Champions League that they are not as good. They couldn't really find a way through a poor Dortmund defense in the round of 16 last year and I think they will have similar struggles on Tuesday.
Although Juventus’ style of play has changed, they are still playing extremely low-event matches, so I don’t think the under should be at plus money.
