Ex Juventus star lashes out: “These players don’t understand what it means to wear this shirt” | OneFootball

Former Juventus winger Alessio Tacchinardi berates Thiago Motta’s men for their weak displays, including their recent defeat in the Italian Super Cup semi-final.

The Bianconeri entered the mini-tournament in Riyadh as the Coppa Italia winners, so they locked horns with last season’s Serie A runners-up, Milan.

Juve were off to a good start thanks to Kenan Yildiz who smashed home the opener in the first half, but after failing to kill off the match with another goal, the Rossoneri pulled off a comeback in the second half thanks to a spot-kick and an own-goal from Federico Gatti.

Many fans and pundits felt that this display highlighted some of the team’s most damning issues, including the lack of character and leaders.

For his part, Tacchinardi described it as a ‘perfect suicide’ on the manager’s part as he got his substitutions all wrong, and insists that the current crop of players haven’t yet realised what it means to don the iconic black and white shirt.

“The other night against Milan was a perfect suicide,” said the 49-year-old in his appearance on Mediaset via JuventusNews24. “Motta made the wrong substitutions.”

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“We need to put pressure on the players and wake them up. Many have not yet understood what it means to wear the Juventus shirt. I see few leaders on the pitch.”

The Crema native represented Juventus between 1994 and 2005, playing alongside iconic figures like Alessandro Del Piero, Pavel Nedved, Gianluigi Buffon, Zinedine Zidane and Antonio Conte. While the Bianconeri squad never lacked charisma during that epoch, the current crop is unfortunately a far cry.

Motta and Cristiano Giuntoli revamped the team in the summer, bringing in a host of new signings and elevating youngsters while parting ways with key players like Federico Chiesa and Wojciech Szczesny, but this overhaul has yet to pay dividends, especially in Serie A where the club had settled for 11 draws in 18 outings.