Juventus coach Max Allegri was left satisfied after their 1-1 draw at Champions League opponents Villarreal.
In the first-leg of their round 16 tie, Juve’s Dusan Vlahovic opened the scoring at La Ceramica within 32 seconds of his debut in the tournament, but Dani Parejo equalised after an Adrien Rabiot error.
“It was a decisive error, because we were coming off a situation where Vlahovic was half-fouled, we sort of stopped, they sort of stopped, Parejo was left totally alone in the box,” Allegri told Mediaset.
“They had no centre-forward, so couldn’t do long balls, and we knew that we had to be wary of these situations. It was six against one, Rabiot didn’t follow him and we stayed still. We should’ve done better.
“Overall, I’d say the team played well, we risked conceding in the first half, then had chances to score and were caught offside too easily, they had a very high line.
“There was a really good opportunity late on, their goalkeeper made a good save.”
On Vlahovic, he also said: “I am happy he played well, as it is not easy against Raul Albiol. This is a Champions League Round of 16, Villarreal have experience, technique and are in good shape, so we couldn’t think of coming here and winning 3-0. We have to take things slowly, one step at a time.”
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