Spalletti: Douglas Luiz doesn't understand keeping possession; Sarri is very tactically versatile

At 02:45 on September 14 (CEST), Juventus will play away to Sassuolo in Serie A Round 4. Ahead of the match, Juventus head coach Spalletti attended a press conference. This is the second part of the press conference.

Hello Coach. I'm curious about Douglas Luiz: would you say he's turning out to be one of your most successful and impressive signings?

No, Douglas Luiz is not a gamble; he's an undeniably elite player in world football. He's proven himself to be an outstanding midfielder in many places. He perhaps just needed to regain confidence in his abilities, which has helped him fully recover his natural form.

When he first arrived, he seemed to like holding onto the ball, sometimes dribbling. Now he understands that the faster the ball moves, the more touches he gets, because his core operational zone is in front of the defense and in dangerous areas. As long as the ball moves, it will eventually come to him. If he constantly runs out wide to engage in local overloads like we mentioned before, he'll find the ball slipping past him four or five times without a touch; when he tries to get back to his defensive midfield position, he has to chase it with all his might. Then he tends to lose control of the match, losing the rhythm and frequency of ball possession he can control with both feet.

He executes the combination of long and short passes very well. He has excellent athleticism and outstanding physical qualities – despite not being tall, he's strong in contested situations, can shield the ball from opponents, is brave in tackling, and is extremely willing to run for his teammates until the final whistle. So he is Douglas Luiz, and all of these are his inherent top qualities. I didn't have any special role in that.

Hello, first, could you give us an update on the injury recovery of the injured players? Also, I'd really like to ask about Aquilani. I think his coaching journey has been very smart and logical: starting from the youth team, then the reserve team, then excellent performances in Serie B last season, and now a big step into Serie A. When you trained him, did you sense he had the potential to become a future coach? What do you think of his excellent coaching performance now?

Let's start with Aquilani. Yes, I had a strong feeling he would become an excellent coach in the future, because as a player, he was a star with all the top qualities. When he played for Roma, he was the type of player who could guide his team in the right direction through moments of brilliance, because he had a unique understanding of ball control, and though very young at the time, he possessed incredibly strong qualities on the pitch. This quality was very evident in his tactical choices.

Today, the tactical solutions he brought to the team as a player remain very clear in the teams he coaches: you can see he has an exceptionally clear vision of his football philosophy, which doesn't surprise me at all, and I naturally send him my warmest congratulations.

Regarding the injury recovery situation... who specifically are you referring to? McKennie and Cambiaso will likely be very difficult to field tomorrow, very difficult... because tomorrow is match day, but the general idea is this: tomorrow morning we'll conduct a final fitness check on Cambiaso, while McKennie we'll have him prepare directly for the next match on Thursday, because we don't want to take any risks. We'll assess Cambiaso, and he'll be on standby. But the logic behind building our squad like this is having two strong players at every position. Whenever I select 11 starters, I know there are another 11 starting-quality players on the bench, because that's how football works.

This means even if we lose a player to injury, we're completely capable of bringing in another starting-quality player, giving another player the chance to be the protagonist of the match. It's not simply losing a starter; instead, it allows us to discover more potential protagonists. This is a fundamental change in perspective: not "we're missing someone," but "someone new is ready." We deeply feel this, and it was also the initial intention when building our squad.

So we must enter the match with complete confidence, because a strong squad is never defined by "injured players missing," but by the "quality" it demonstrates on the pitch. Everyone will see what quality we display, and this depends on the strong desire of the players to prove themselves, and their desire for all Juventus fans to believe that the players we've chosen are completely capable of asserting themselves in this team.

Hello Coach. I'd like to follow up on my colleague's question and ask about your first impressions working with Sarr in recent days. What can he add to midfield? How much fitness has he recovered? Also, I'd like to ask about Owusu. Given the current injury situation, will he become a regular part of the team from now on?

Sarr is a player, as we've mentioned many times before, who is very interesting and promising, because he can thrive in any tactical environment. He's an extremely versatile player with exceptional running ability and quality. You always see him appearing precisely and timely in many different areas. When you think the team's tactical system can't reach that position, you'll see Sarr has run there, because he has excellent attacking running ability and abundant stamina.

While moving across the pitch and exploring, he also combines extremely high tactical qualities – he knows how to defend, has excellent technical detail, and is skilled at timing his runs and finishing. We believe we have a strong player, and if the match demands it tomorrow, he could very well start showing that from tomorrow itself.

Owusu is a promising young player with many excellent qualities. He still needs to accumulate more match experience and better understand himself, but physically, he's certainly a tough, solid player. When you collide with him in a contested situation, he'll give you serious trouble. When he shields the ball, others find it hard to take it from him. He has rhythm, can run, and covers a large area. He just needs to learn to anticipate more during matches – because on the pitch, when people see your intentions, the match becomes difficult; and being able to recognize changes in the situation from the first moment gives you the decisive advantage to maintain until the end.

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