Juventus Beat Lecce Thanks To Nicolo Fagioli After He Fought To Stay At The Club

Like it has been in most Juventus games over the last 18 months, Saturday night’s encounter with Lecce was a drab, dour affair that could only add to the misery of those watching in black and white.

Fans of the Old Lady have suffered as their club was toppled from the top of the Serie A summit, then looked on helplessly as rivals passed her one by one. Inter won the Scudetto in 2021, followed by Milan last season, and Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma lifted a European trophy to really rub salt in the wounds.

With Juve playing soulless football as the demise continued, a midweek defeat to Benfica saw them crash out of the Champions League before the Group Stage had even been completed.

Then came the trip to the Stadio Via del Mare and the team once again delivered a dire display. As always there were plenty of excuses, starting with a list of absentees that included Gleison Bremer, Federico Chiesa, Angel Di Maria, Manuel Locatelli, Leandro Paredes, Paul Pogba and Dusan Vlahovic.

But even so, the Bianconeri should’ve had more than enough quality to see off a Lecce side that had scored fewer goals (9) than all but one team in Serie A so far this term. Yet the visitors could find no way to open up their opponents, with Adrien Rabiot recording their first shot on target after more than 30 minutes had been played.

Once again playing without creativity or any coherent plan of attack, Juve knocked the ball around hoping an opportunity to score might appear, lacking the ideas or inventiveness to create one.

The sheer volume of players missing had forced Max Allegri to field a number of young players, with Fabio Miretti and Matìas Soulé – both 19 years old – inserted into the starting XI.

The second half then saw the Coach introduce Moise Kean (22), Nicolò Fagioli (21) and Samuel Iling-Junior, and it would be a seemingly innocuous pass from the latter that finally broke the deadlock.

Iling-Junior knocked the ball into the box where Fagioli was blocked off by a wall of red and yellow shirts but, as he turned, the smallest of gaps opened up and he curled a superbly placed shot into the top corner.

“It was a wonderful goal, I am so happy. I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment and to do it with the Juventus jersey was just amazing,” Fagioli told DAZN after bagging his first ever Serie A goal.

“I just wanted to run to the bench and celebrate with my teammates, because they gave me so much support during this period. It was my way of thanking them. When I took the shot, it felt like time stood still, the ball just hung in the air forever.”

There was more than a passing resemblance to Alessandro Del Piero’s trademark finish about the goal, and it underlined the very real fact that this Juve team is capable of so much more than they are actually achieving.

Fagioli is a youth product who has been at the club since 2015, his talent obvious from the beginning, with Allegri telling reporters in 2018 that the midfielder “knows football and its tempo very well, it’s a pleasure to watch him play.”

Yet the Coach never fielded him during his first tenure, nor did Maurizio Sarri, Fagioli waiting until January 2021 when Andrea Pirlo gave him his debut in the Coppa Italia. A 20-minute substitute appearance in the league followed a month later, but then last season he was shipped off to Cremonese in Serie B.

That year-long loan ended this past summer and Fagioli had to fight to stay in Turin rather than being sent out again, La Gazzetta dello Sport reporting in June that he would only sign a new contract if he was given the opportunity to play for the first team.

He’ll turn 22 in February and had to dig his heels in for even the smallest chance, so far this season seeing a total of 104 minutes across five substitute appearances with 45 of those coming against Lecce on Saturday.

Perhaps a match-winning goal will see him given more playing time, because that strike is one of very few bright spots in an otherwise dire campaign for Juventus. They need something different, something new, something untainted by fear and uncertainty. They need more Nicolò Fagioli.