Cyril Théréau wakes up every morning with a kiss on his neck. The Udinese striker had it tattooed there in 2013, choosing an ink pattern in the shape of a lipstick mark as a tribute to his long-term partner, Natalie Rodela. But by the time he went to bed on Sunday evening, Théréau had rival supporters from Rome to Florence wishing they could plant a smooch on him as well.
He won their affection with a goal that sunk Juventus in Turin. Running on to a Panagiotis Kone cross in the 78th minute, Théréau swept the ball home to seal Udinese’s improbable 1-0 victory. The finish itself was unremarkable, but the result will go down in history. It is the first time Juventus have ever lost a season-opener at home, and also the first time that they have failed to score in one. More than that, this was a defeat that denied the Old Lady an opportunity to establish herself immediately as Serie A’s front-runner – a status she has enjoyed in recent years. Sunday marked the first time since November 2013 that Juventus finished a round of games in anything other than first place.
Udinese were fortunate to win, having spent much of the match with their backs to the wall. Théréau’s goal came from just their third shot, by which point the hosts had already attempted 19. If this were still the same Juventus side that won the double last year, then the result might have been dismissed as a blip – just one of those days when the ball refused to bounce the champions’ way.
And maybe that is all it will turn out to be. But in the context of the off-season’s overhaul, old certainties have disappeared. The departures of Andrea Pirlo, Carlos Tevez and Arturo Vidal were always going to be felt, but the sight of Leonardo Bonucci and Paul Pogba hoicking free-kicks off target in the first half provided a jarring reminder of exactly what had been lost.
A team that seemed so confident in the wake of its Supercoppa win over Lazio showed no such swagger here. Mario Mandzukic occasionally threatened up front, but there was no cohesion between the midfield and attack. Bonucci acknowledged that all was not yet flowing seamlessly, defining this as a “transition season” during his post-match interviews.
If such words carried a hint of concern, then the local press moved directly to panic. “Is [Juan] Cuadrado enough?” asked the front page of Tuttosport, in response to news that the Chelsea forward looks set to join Juventus on loan.
It is the sort of dilemma that many Serie A teams would love to have, and if Juventus were seeking reassurance on Monday morning, they might find it in the fact that most of the teams predicted to challenge them this season had similarly frustrating starts. Roma drew away to Verona, while Milan and Napoli lost to Fiorentina and Sassuolo respectively.
The lack of vim displayed by all of these clubs was striking. Roma struggled to get the ball to Edin Dzeko and needed a solo strike from Alessandro Florenzi to bring them level after they had fallen behind. Napoli faded after a bright start, giving up a one-goal lead amid protests from their manager Maurizio Sarri about the state of the pitch at the Mapei Stadium.
Milan were even more disastrous, failing to achieve even a single shot on goal during their 2-0 defeat at Fiorentina. At least they had the excuse of facing high-calibre opposition. The Viola have undergone a drastic overhaul of their own this summer, parting ways with Vincenzo Montella and subsequently trimming roughly a quarter off their player wage bill, while saying goodbye to the likes of Mario Gómez and Mohamed Salah (though not especially happily in the case of the latter).
Results in pre-season had been encouraging, Fiorentina beating both Chelsea and Barcelona, but preparations had subsequently been undermined by Joaquín’s apparent desire to move back to Spain. The winger was dropped at short notice from the team to face Milan.
Regardless, Fiorentina were everything that they had promised to be under their new manager Paulo Sousa – compact, aggressive and fast. Without undoing Montella’s preference for attractive football, Sousa has sought to make his team more direct in their approach.
The new mindset worked wonders here, Nikola Kalinic’s relentless attempts to run in behind the defence unsettling Rodrigo Ely so greatly that the Milan defender wound up being sent off after collecting two yellow cards inside the opening 36 minutes. His mistakes were punished further when Marcos Alonso brilliantly converted the free-kick that resulted from the latter of those offences.
Fiorentina did not let Milan back into the game after that, scoring a second goal from the penalty spot and holding their opponents without a shot on target. Sousa insisted after the game that his team could still get a lot better, too.
Back at Juventus, Massimiliano Allegri expressed a similar sentiment about his own team, pointing out that “Serie A is not a 100m sprint”. This is evidently true, and we would be wise to avoid sweeping conclusions, but history does also tell us that Serie A champions have typically got off to a fast start. Only four teams have ever lifted the Scudetto after losing their opening game.
Two of those, admittedly, were Juventus sides – those of 1932-33 and 1974-75. The other two were the Torino teams of 1942-43 and 1975-76, so perhaps it is just something in the air.
But after a weekend when Sampdoria put five past the newly-promoted Carpi, Stevan Jovetic marked his debut with an injury-time goal and Milan threatened to bring Mario Balotelli back in on loan, the most confident prediction we can make is simply that it ought to be an eventful ride.
Talking points
• Twenty-seven goals across the 10 games this week, and a few rather good ones along the way. Alonso’s free-kick remains my personal favourite, but Ryder Matos’s effort against Carpi wasn’t half bad either, while Antonio Floro Flores’s chest and volley off a Domenico Berardi chip is one of those that only seems to improve with repeat viewings …
• This Balotelli thing is going to end badly, isn’t it? I’d love to believe otherwise – I’ve always been a believer in his talent – but at the moment the whole move seems rather hard to fathom. Milan showed plenty of flaws against Fiorentina, but it’s hard to say if striker was one of them because in practice they weren’t ever getting the ball up to Carlos Bacca and Luiz Adriano with any regularity. The theory goes that Mihajlovic knows how to get the best out of Balo, having stayed close to him ever since they worked together while at Inter (Mihajlovic was Roberto Mancini’s assistant) but to me it just seems like a bad time to introduce another strong character to a squad that, more than anything, needs to be allowed to settle.
• “It’s too soon to talk about the Scudetto,” said Stevan Jovetic at the end of Inter’s win over Atalanta. Given that the Nerazzurri needed until the end of injury-time to beat opponents who finished 17th last year and played the last 20 minutes with 10 men, I’m inclined to agree.
• There’s something a little bit chaotic about Walter Zenga’s Sampdoria, which is befitting of the man himself – who managed to get sent to the stands after leaving his technical area one too many times to celebrate his team’s goals. The attacking partnership of Eder and Luis Muriel looks very good indeed when things click, but there were signs here – as in the Europa League collapse against Vojvodina – that this team is going to have problems at the back.
• Not a happy introduction to the top-flight for either Carpi or Frosinone, though the latter did snatch an early lead at home to what I’m expecting to be a good Torino team. Early impressions are that both teams do look overmatched – unsurprising given that their entire transfer campaigns have been built on free signings and loan deals – but Frosinone will at least be able to count (on Sunday’s evidence) on a vocal crowd at the Matusa. We’ll have to wait and see how Carpi get on in Modena’s comparatively cavernous Stadio Alberto Braglia.
• Yet another injury setback for Lazio ahead of their Champions League play-off second leg against Bayer Leverkusen, as Lucas Biglia follows Miroslav Klose, Filip Djordjevic and Federico Marchetti in being ruled out of Wednesday’s game. The good news is that new signing Ricardo Kishna looked sharp, scoring on his Serie A debut against Bologna, but this squad is looking awfully thin.
Results: Empoli 1-3 Chievo, Fiorentina 2-0 Milan, Frosinone 1-2 Torino, Inter 1-0 Atalanta, Juventus 0-1 Udinese, Lazio 2-1 Bologna, Palermo 1-0 Genoa, Sampdoria 5-2 Carpi, Sassuolo 2-1 Napoli, Verona 1-1 Roma.
