Vicario slams Juventus after late 3-2 loss to Sassuolo

Sassuolo led twice, through Sebastiano Esposito and then Kieron Bowie, both goals coming after the visitors' offside trap broke down. Edon Zhegrova dragged Juventus level both times with solo finishes, on 82 minutes and again on 91. With the last kick of the match, on 94 minutes, Vasilije Adzic bent a finish past Douglas Luiz to make it 3-2.

Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario made no attempt to hide his frustration afterwards. "There is great bitterness, because I understand the desire to go and win the game, because we are Juventus and it is our obligation to aim for victory every time, but we lost our balance and we talked all week about this," he told DAZN Italia. "Juventus cannot concede two goals like that. This is a club with a glorious history and we cannot allow goals like that. We need to be more calm and balanced, because we have a team full of quality, and we will be able to create chances."

Douglas Luiz, the central midfielder signed by Juventus in September 2024, was left exposed for the winner and offered no cover as Adzic went past him. It came a week after Juventus had needed a late leveller of their own, Federico Gatti coming off the bench to snatch a 1-1 draw against Milan.

Head coach Luciano Spalletti, who took charge of the club last season after leaving Zenit, pointed to the same failing. "We conceded those two goals at the end because we lost our balance and left too much space," he said, as quoted by Juvenews. "Still, we had a huge desire to turn the match around, even though we found ourselves in a very difficult situation, and in my opinion the team deserved a positive result."

Sassuolo, founded in 1920, had taken 4 points from their opening 3 fixtures and sat 10th in Serie A before kick-off, with Cristian Volpato and Andrea Pinamonti sharing the scoring lead on 4 goals apiece and Armand Laurienté on 3.

The defeat ends Juventus's unbeaten start to the campaign, and Spalletti now faces the task of fixing a defensive lapse his side had, by their own account, spent the whole week working on.