“I feel completely responsible, I’m ashamed”: Thiago Motta takes blame on himself
Thiago Motta unleashed his fury upon himself and his Juventus squad this week after his side’s frankly embarrassing loss at the hands of Empoli in the Coppa Italia. Juve had been handed a pretty straightforward path to the final of the competition but true to form, managed to botch it up. With this elimination, all hope of silverware this season has seemingly vanished into thin air.
The home team was ineffective in the initial stages and faced consequences for their failures when Youssouf Maleh scored with an excellent shot from outside the area.
Thiago Motta’s thoughts
The Azzurri had multiple opportunities to increase their lead but did not capitalize on them. Khephren Thuram evened the score with a fantastic individual effort in the second half, but the Old Lady could not find the winning goal and ultimately lost in the penalty shootout. After experiencing their second elimination within a week, Motta was frustrated with his players, while also accepting his part in not adequately preparing them for the match from a mental perspective.
“I feel completely responsible, I’m ashamed of what we saw on the pitch,” said Thiago Motta in his post-match interview (via the official Juventus website).
“In the first half, there was a complete lack of the required attitude, it means that I didn’t convey to the boys what it means to play in a game like that in a Juventus shirt. You can misplace passes, you can miss shots. But you can’t lack the correct attitude. It was a very important game for us and we got it completely wrong. We as a team have to do much better than we did in the first half.”
As expected, the attending fans in the Allianz Arena weren’t too impressed, booing and jeering a side who have had a pretty poor season so far.
“I hope the criticism is scathing. I think our fans were too kind to us after they saw it in the first half, too kind. I hope for an immediate reaction from these players because I repeat, I feel ashamed of what I saw in the team and a huge responsibility on my part because I didn’t make them understand the importance of the match. We passed back twenty times to the goalkeeper without taking responsibility or looking down, this is unacceptable. We apologize to the fans, to the club, to the history of this club because we’ve hit rock bottom.”
