Juventus 5-0: Gonzalez's Free Role and the Sigh of Relief After the Sassuolo Defeat

On match day, I arrived at the stadium earlier than usual. Not to pick a good seat, but to walk around the corridor leading to the dressing-room area, where the sound has not yet been swallowed by the crowd. There, I heard a physio tell a colleague in a very low voice: "Tonight he plays higher up." No name given. In football, such sentences are never without a subject for those inside the room. Twenty minutes later, the electronic clock above the stand ticked to the ninth minute. Nicolás González pounced on Polster's mistake, and the ball settled in the net. A goal born of a gift. But what I wrote in my notebook was the run González made before the ball reached him: from midfield, past two lines, into the exact gap between centre-back and full-back. By full time, the score read 5-0. Five different names on the board: González, Alajbegović, Woltemade, Çelik, Kolo Muani. For most spectators, it was a perfect evening. For me, it was a night that needed a second reading. The dressing room does not lie — it only whispers to the right person at the right time. The match came right after a Juventus defeat to Sassuolo. Pressure weighed on head coach Luciano Spalletti and seeped into every corner of the corridor. In Serie A, when a big club loses to a smaller side, the question is not whether something is wrong, but how long there is left. The opening four rounds of the domestic season produced no 0-0 draw. That tells you the league is playing open football, and every mistake is punished faster than usual. So the away trip in Europe carried unusual weight. For a team being scrutinised pass by pass, a heavy win goes far beyond three points. It is a presentation to the board, to the media, and to the players inside the dressing room that the formula is heading in the right direction. What stood out was how Spalletti arranged González. Previously, the Argentine was usually pinned to a flank, where he had to drop to defend and sprint forward to attack. This time it was different. He was freed behind the central striker, allowed to choose when to break, which way to run, and at what tempo. That freedom is not a reward for talent. It is a tactical gamble. When you give a player licence to leave his position, you open a gap behind his back. The problem for any coach is who fills it. Against this opponent, Juventus seemed to have an answer. But "seemed" and "certain" are two different words. A 3-4-2-1 looks like numbers on paper; seen from the dressing room, it is people willing to sacrifice position for one another. González scored, but the more notable detail was the move he started that led to the penalty. A free player who only shoots becomes a danger to his own team; one who both scores and creates turns his new role into a genuine attacking axis. The spread of scorers is worth pausing on. Five different players, from five different positions. For a side that had been questioned over its ability to produce something unexpected, that is a positive signal. But seen through the eyes of someone who has sat through too many post-match press conferences, I have to ask myself: how much of it came from structure, and how much from the opponent's mistakes? The opening goal came from Polster's error. In football, a ninth-minute goal of that kind completely changes the state of the match. The opponent must push up, the defensive line stretches, and gaps appear where none existed before. The 5-0 is real. But how that 5-0 was built is the story worth telling. This is where I want to be blunt. Without expected goals, pressure counts, or passes into dangerous areas, any conclusion about Juventus blooming is guesswork. I have watched football long enough to know that some 5-0 wins are worse than a dull goalless draw. Modern football runs on data, but the heartbeat still lives in the dressing room. After the match, González said: "We needed this win, we needed to play well." It sounds ordinary, but to someone who has stood in the mixed zone after hundreds of games, it is worth more than a column of statistics. When a player uses the word "needed" twice in one sentence, it means the team had been in a state of lack. They were short on belief more than on points. He added that strikers need goals for confidence. That is an indirect confession. If a forward line is fine, nobody brings it up. Woltemade and Kolo Muani scoring therefore means more than a line on the scoresheet. It is medicine for a room that needed reassurance. Every contract is a farewell framed by a signature, and every goal by a loanee is a fresh argument for the future. But this is where I have to doubt my own joy. There is a reading contrary to the majority: this 5-0 does not confirm that Juventus have found a formula. It confirms only that when the opponent errs early, Spalletti's side knows how to punish. That is a skill, not yet an identity. The difference is huge. Identity wins you games even when the opponent makes no mistake. The skill of punishment only wins when the gift arrives. Over a long season, the number of opponents who hand you gifts is smaller than people assume. The second blind spot lies in González's free role. It looks good when the team leads. It becomes a burden when the team trails. A free player means, on paper, one fewer defensive position. If the opponent is good enough to transition quickly, that space will be exploited without mercy. Whenever I watch a big club haul itself up after defeat, I think of Rostov-on-Don, 2 July 2026. The whistle has gone, but inside me the match is not over. And the third blind spot, perhaps the biggest for the media: the pressure has not gone. A 5-0 erases tomorrow morning's headline, not next week's. If Juventus return to Serie A and slip, the story of the Sassuolo defeat will be pulled out intact, with only the opening paragraph changed. What I want to see next is not another scoreline, but a match in which González plays free while his team trails. That is the real test. And I will be back in the dressing-room corridor, listening for who speaks first when things stop being easy. I keep the beat for the dressing room with old stories, because the young need to know what they are continuing.