Spalletti on the penalty taker and Koopmeiners: questionable choices

As for the decision to have Locatelli take the penalty, despite Kenan Yildiz having handled the ball near the penalty spot, Spalletti was crystal clear in his post-match comments: "I’m happy to explain the penalty incident to you… but let’s start by giving a straightforward account of what happened. Who’s the penalty taker? Last time you asked me why Locatelli didn’t take it and why someone else did… David took it… so why did he take it? Yildiz took it… and why?… Now we’re having Locatelli take it, so why did Locatelli take it?”.

And again: “This is a complete mess: tell us what to do, tell us or we’ll all end up in a madhouse, we’ll all end up in a madhouse. Yildiz? He had the ball in his hands… They take the ball because it’s clear they want to take the penalty. Then I speak to Locatelli, who came over and said to me: ‘I’ll take it’. So? If you want to take it, you take it, because you’re the designated penalty-taker… ‘I’ll take it,’ well done, go on and tell him I said you have to take it. It was a completely normal thing… otherwise let’s set up a co-operative… another referendum on who should take the penalty…”.

Spalletti has his reasons, and from a rational point of view and in terms of respecting the pecking order, his argument makes perfect sense: Locatelli is the designated penalty-taker, and it is only right that he should take the spot-kick. We would like to take this opportunity to outline the arguments of those who maintain that it would have been better if Yildiz had taken the penalty against Sassuolo. First of all, it is true that from a rational and hierarchical point of view the penalty was Locatelli’s to take, but Spalletti himself has taught us throughout his career that football is not just about rationality: it is also about emotion and intuition.

And perhaps the moment in the 85th minute of Juventus v Sassuolo deserved a decision dictated by emotion and intuition. Locatelli had just misplaced a couple of passes, and the Stadium crowd had even grumbled at one of them. Yildiz, on the other hand, had played a great game, even scoring a wonderful goal: he felt up to it, he wanted to lead the team to victory.

A situation very different from the one in which Jonathan David was the unfortunate protagonist in Juventus v Lecce: the Canadian hadn’t scored in ages, he was a player in difficulty, to whom Locatelli, that evening, made the fine, selfless and captain-like gesture of leaving the responsibility of taking the penalty to him. Yildiz, on the night of Juve v Sassuolo, was in a completely different psychological state to that of David against Lecce.

And then there is also the question of the absolute value of the players in question. We have already written this in less controversial times and we repeat it today: Juventus’ number 10 should always be the first penalty taker and the first choice for free kicks for the Bianconeri, as was the case in the past with Platini, Baggio and Del Piero. If he isn’t, in our view, that is a problem. Either for the player or for the manager.

Another decision that raised eyebrows during the Juventus v Sassuolo match was the deployment of Teun Koopmeiners. Coming on in the 62nd minute to replace Khephren Thuram, the Dutchman was initially positioned very high up the pitch, effectively as a striker. With his back to goal – a situation in which he has repeatedly said he does not feel comfortable. And indeed, he didn’t touch the ball. Then, following the introductions of Vlahovic and Milik, Koopmeiners was moved back into defence. Everywhere except midfield, then. What a sorry end for a €61 million signing, now reduced to a stopgap.

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