After Juventus’ 0-1 away defeat to Real Madrid in the third round of the Champions League group stage, Juventus striker Dusan Vlahović spoke to Camel.live journalists.
We can certainly say this was Juventus’ best performance of the season. Despite the defeat in the end, what matters is sending a message in terms of attitude…
Yes, I believe that’s the case. Compared to the match against Como, and many other matches in my view, we have made a huge change. As we discussed after the game, I think all of us agree on one thing: we must maintain this attitude and mindset throughout the entire match. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu, against Como—not to disrespect anyone, in case someone misunderstands me—or any other team.
We must maintain the same mindset and humility in every match. I think only then can we achieve results, because I don’t believe a crucial team like ours should have such huge fluctuations within three days. To be honest, in our last match last Sunday, we really— I don’t want to say the wrong thing, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me—didn’t reach the level that Juventus should have.
I think we played a good game today, but we are certainly not satisfied because we still ended up with a loss, that’s for sure. We created our chances, and chances are decisive in games like this. Because if you score that goal, I believe the game would have gone in a completely different direction. We lost, and we don’t have much time to dwell on this defeat. We must immediately focus on the match against Lazio, which will be a very tough away trip.
Okay, on a personal level, we also saw an aggressive performance from you. You put in a lot of effort, you actually created a scoring chance for yourself, and then obviously you got a bit tired. But my question is about this attitude: given the ups and downs you mentioned, how can we maintain this consistency?
Yes, we must work hard, and we must communicate every day. To be honest, I believe no one can be blamed for their work, because I think all of us are giving 100%. But obviously, as we’ve heard, that’s not enough. All of us must do more. We must discuss these situations every day; only then can we improve. Otherwise, we will always go back to the same old story: one good game, then three bad ones. That’s the situation, and it’s been like this all year, but it’s not right. All of us are aware of this, and we absolutely must raise our level.
Talking about consistency, after a performance like tonight’s, do you also expect to keep your starting spot moving forward?
I don’t know—that’s the coach’s decision. My responsibility, as I said two or three months ago, is to be ready for deployment, always train at my best, respect everyone, and do what is required of me. So in the end, who gets to play is up to the coach.
