Andrea Pirlo revealed Juventus were feeling the fear from their heavy defeat to Fiorentina before the mid-season break in the early stages of their 4-1 win over Udinese on Sunday.
Juve suffered a humiliating 3-0 home loss to La Viola in December – their first in the league this season – but the champions bounced back to winning ways in style at the Allianz Stadium.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored either side of Federico Chiesa s cool finish – the 15th consecutive season the Portugal star has scored 20 goals for club and country – before Udinese s Marvin Zeegelaar and Paulo Dybala exchanged goals in the closing stages.
The result ensured Juve avoided going three consecutive home games without a win for the first time since 2015-16, and Pirlo conceded the defeat to Fiorentina last time out was on his players minds early on.
It wasn t the best Juventus, as we were coming off a bad defeat to Fiorentina, so started quite timid and nervous, especially when their forwards ran towards us. We gained more confidence as it went on, Pirlo told DAZN.
I was not satisfied with the initial approach to the game, as we were still feeling the fear of our last defeat to Fiorentina. The timing of the movements weren t right, especially on the wings.
