Vlahovic, the fast continues: on the bench in Lisbon?

Michael DiChiaro | goal.com

Very complicated moment for the Serbian forward who is no longer able to score and, above all, to score goals: he hasn't scored in Serie A since 7 February.

After suffering a second consecutive league defeat, Juventus enter the week that will chart their European destiny with the second leg of the Europa League quarter-finals scheduled for Thursday at the José Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon against Sporting .

With two days still available to finalize the training choices, Di Maria and Milik are the strong candidates to wear a starting shirt within the 3-5-2 with which the bianconeri will try to defend the 1-0 of the 'one way gained at the Stadium .

Who, at this point, risks having to sit on the bench is Dusan Vlahovic . The Serbian striker is experiencing the most difficult moment since he arrived in Italy if we consider his performance between Florence and Turin.

The Serbian's crisis is evidently certified by the numbers: the class of 2000, in fact, hasn't scored in Serie A for 9 games . To track down the former viola's last match as a protagonist, we need to rewind the tape to last February 7, the day of his brace against Salernitana at the Arechi .

Since then, darkness. Total. In the next nine outings, Vlahovic was deployed eight times as a starter without ever being able to find the way to the net. Something paradoxical for someone like him who, especially in Florence, had established a relationship of great complicity with the opposing goal.

And instead his first 'full-time' season in black and white is proving to be more intricate than expected, with the ups and downs of the zebra-striped year which necessarily reflects on the performances of the player who was taken away with millions in January 2022.

In Europe the situation is certainly not better, even if the Europa League represents the competition in which its last rings were registered: on 16 February it unlocked the match at the Stadium against Nantes, while exactly one month later - the March 16 - scored from a penalty against Freiburg. Nothing but the last center of him.

Too little for someone like him, hired by Madama to forcefully raise the scoring average of a striker park which after Cristiano Ronaldo's farewell in the summer of 2021 settled on decidedly lower standards.

Dusan was (and is) the chosen one. The man called to drag the Old Lady to the sound of a goal. He was taken for this, but the feedback from the field has so far offered too fluctuating results.