Good but not good enough. That is the summary of Juventus’s 2-2 draw against Rennes in the Europa League MD3. The bianconeri led 1-0 through the two-striker partnership, were overtaken 1-2, recovered to make it 2-2 through Woltemade’s penalty, and then had a legitimate 3-2 lead — the goal the match and possibly the week deserved — disallowed by a VAR intervention that Sky Sport’s analysis team examined in full on the night and concluded was an error. The headline’s Mbappé reference contains the specific technical explanation.
The Lucumì Goal and the Mbappé Connection — Why It Was Wrongly Disallowed
The disallowed goal is the subject of the second chapter — “Lucumì e il gol annullato” — and the Mbappé reference in the headline is the technical key to understanding the VAR’s reasoning and its error. The rule involved concerns a player who makes a movement that induces an opponent to play a ball a certain way. The specific precedent involving Mbappé — in which a similar intervention had been deemed sufficient to nullify a goal — was cited by the VAR as the basis for disallowing Lucumì’s header. Sky Sport’s studio analysis, having examined the footage frame by frame, concluded that the Mbappé precedent was incorrectly applied in this instance: the Rennes player could have played the ball differently regardless of Lucumì’s movement, making the comparison invalid and the disallowance wrong.
Spalletti said after the match: “I don’t know the rules, but the way it happened gives you some interpretation. I was upset. He had all the time to choose what to do. He made the wrong movement — not because anyone got in his way.” The Sky analysis confirmed his reading. Three points became one.
Capello: “A Beautiful Match — But Rennes’s Technical Quality Exposed Juventus’s Defensive Limitations”
The former manager’s assessment from the Sky studio was balanced and specific: “It was a beautiful match. The technical quality of Rennes emerged — they have very skillful players, good at dribbling. In several situations, the difficulty of Juventus’s defence in handling these technical capabilities was highlighted.” The diagnosis is familiar from the broader season: a defensive line that is solid in organisation but vulnerable when facing individual technical quality at pace, particularly on the flanks.
Marocchi: “Something Positive and Something Absolutely Negative — a Thirty-Minute Passage That Was Ugly to Watch”
Giancarlo Marocchi’s assessment is divided precisely along the same lines Spalletti himself drew after the match: “I was thinking about what to use as a reference point. Of what was positive, it seems like a settled, organised squad with everyone in their position. Of what was absolutely negative, there was that half-hour from when Rennes equalised to the end of the first half — where Rennes had the ball possession and had Juventus chasing them around. That was ugly to watch. Then we reached a reaction that also produced a 3-2 — then disallowed.” The 30-minute passage — passive, without territorial presence, Rennes comfortable in possession — is the specific tactical regression that Spalletti identified in his post-match observation about Juventus’s difficulty in taking ground. The improvement in the second half, producing the comeback to 2-2 and then the wrongly disallowed third, makes the final scoreline both better than the first-half performance deserved and worse than the second half produced.
