Spalletti Takes Blame After Juventus Collapse at Sassuolo

Luciano Spalletti did not hide. After seeing his side turn the game on its head at Sassuolo, only to let it slip again, the Juventus coach walked into the interview area with the look of a man replaying every decision in his mind.

“It hurts a lot because the guys deservedly turned the game around,” he said. “We lost our balance, and that's something you can't do.”

Juventus had chased the win, not the draw. That was the message all week, and it was the message on the touchline as the clock ticked down. Spalletti admitted that mentality came directly from him.

“The players tried to go and win it. I was the one who pushed them to go and win this game,” he explained. “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: wave after wave of white shirts flooding forward, leaving space behind. Desire turning into recklessness.

Yet Spalletti refused to criticise the intent of his players, only the way it was channelled.

“You also have to take the positive intention from the team: we lost because we were giving all we could to win it and not draw,” he said. “Of course, there's definitely some responsibility on our part, but it all came from the desire to go and win the game.”

The coach’s words framed the defeat as a painful lesson in game management. The hunger was there. The control was not.

Vicario echoes warning on lost balance

Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario struck a similar tone, mixing frustration with a clear understanding of what went wrong.

“We’re really disappointed,” he admitted. “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 line cut deep. This was not a new problem. It was one they had identified, discussed, and still failed to correct when it mattered most.

“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.”

The message from both coach and goalkeeper was blunt: ambition alone is not enough. If Juventus keep chasing wins with this much abandon, how many more nights like Sassuolo will they have to endure?