Juve reached a historic low as they lost to Monza for the second time this season in one of their worst performances in years.

There have been some absurdly low moments for Juventus in the 2022-23 season. One of the earliest was in Round 7 against Monza, when Angel Di Maria was sent off for a blatant elbow to the chest of a defender and succumbed to a goal in the last 15 minutes, giving the home team their first-ever Serie A victory.

In Sunday’s return game at the Allianz Stadium, Juve somehow found a way to dig themselves lower than that moment.

Juventus allowed Monza to completely outclass them in the first half. Juve had but a single shot on target in those first 45 minutes, while Monza ran circles around them on the other end, piercing the defense seemingly effortlessly and putting the ball into the net three times, though only two of them ended up counting.

Those two turned out to be more than enough. Juve did come out of halftime far better — a low bar, but still — and for a time put the Monza goal under the type of siege that for a while made you think that some sort of comeback could well be in the offing. But Michele Di Gregorio went Super Saiyan, producing at least three absolutely magnificent saves and a number of the more run-of-the-mill stops, and by the end of the half Juve was left dejected and out of puff, limping to a 2-0 defeat that made their opponents the first team ever to do the double on Juve the season after being promoted from Serie B to Serie A, and, thanks to the 15-point penalty that is still currently in place pending appeal, actually vaulted Monza over Juventus in the table.

There remained questions about whether or not Massimiliano Allegri would change his shape and tactics after some unsuccessful showings the last few weeks, but he ultimately stayed with the 3-5-1-1 setup he’s used since well before the World Cup break. He was given a boost when Paul Pogba and Dusan Vlahovic finally returned to the bench after injuries had kept them out for months, but was missing Juan Cuadrado and Federico Chiesa, both of whom were held back with muscle soreness after their long-term injuries. Daniele Rugani and Kaio Jorge also missed out, while Weston McKennie was not called up as he headed to England to complete his loan move to Leeds United. Wojciech Szczesny started behind the defensive line of Federico Gatti, Bremer, and Danilo. Mattia De Sciglio made his first appearance since Oct. 5 at the right wing-back position, opposite Filip Kostic. Nicolo Fagioli, Leandro Paredes, and Adrien Rabiot manned the midfield, while Di Maria roamed behind Moise Kean in attack.

Raffaele Palladino already had one famous win against Juve, and had played them tough 10 days ago when the two teams met in the Coppa Italia. He had almost a full deck in terms of players available, missing only Franco Carboni, Samuele Vignato, and Warren Bondo. He deployed in a 3-4-2-1 setup. Di Gregorio was protected by the back three of Armando Izzo, Luca Caldirola, and Pablo Mari. Patrick Ciurra and Carlos Augusto were on the flanks, bookending the double pivot of Jose Machin and Juve loanee Nicolo Rovella. Gianluca Caprari and Matteo Pessina supported Dany Mota in attack.

Juve showed signs of looking lively early on. Paredes sent in a dangerous free kick that bounced just past Gatti and Bremer, then what looked like a wayward long ball from Gatti turned into a perfect feed for Kostic, who fed Rabiot into the box. The Frenchman was stopped, but earned a corner in the process.

But Monza counterpunched after 10 minutes and put the ball into the net when Pessina got hold of a defensive header and slipped the ball to Caprari, who had stolen into a gap between De Sciglio and Gatti. He gave a little ground to clear the big center-back and fired a worm-burner that Szczesny should’ve done better with at the near post. The ease with which they pierced the defense was stunning, but they were fortunate. The newfangled semi-automated offside system caught Caprari off by a hair as he came back for the ball, sparing Szczesny an embarrassing mistake and giving keeping the game level.

But Juve didn’t heed the warning. Eight minutes after the goal was chalked off, Alberto restarted play with a throw-in. Two simple passes from Caprari to Machin moved the ball across the field, then the latter put Ciurra in with a simple through ball. The wing-back ran past a badly-position Kostic, who got completely turned around, and roofed the ball past a stranded Szczesny to open the scoring for real this time.

Juve’s response to going down was anemic. It quickly became apparent that there was only one team on the field that was looking to play football — and that team wasn’t Juventus. The players on the field looked like they had no idea what their teammates were about to do. Kean and Fagioli misfired with each other a couple of times, one of them passing the ball one way while the other moved in the opposite direction. The Bianconeri only ever came close to sniffing an early equalizer when Gatti had a shot blocked wide after the ball pinged around the box following a corner.

As Juve flailed and Monza threatened more and more, the disaster deepened six minutes before the break. Once again the defense was broken open ridiculously easily. It started on a giveaway by Di Maria, who was trying to find a diagonal run by Fagioli but instead hit the ball straight to Augusto. A quick passing triangle released the Brazilian downfield, and he charged toward the goal. The only runner he had with him was Mota, and initially it looked like Gatti had him well marked, but the defender inexplicably moved stepped away from his man and squared up to the ball instead. Perhaps he was expecting Mota to move that way as well, or perhaps he thought he had help to his left that wasn’t actually there. Either way, the move opened a massive hole through which Augusto put Mota clear on goal. The former Juve youth product easily rounded the keeper and stroked the ball into the net to double the advantage.

It was as calamitous a half as Juventus have played in years. Allegri recognized as such, and came out of the locker room making a triple change, sending on Manuel Locatelli, Matias Soule, and Samuel Iling-Junior in place of Paredes, Fagioli, and Kostic. The game could — and perhaps should — have been on within minutes of the restart when Augusto accidentally flicked a corner kick on to the far post where Bremer was waiting, but the big man somehow failed to get any sort of touch to it to redirect it in.

Juve were certainly improved after the break, and really picked things up in the 57th minute when Arkadiusz Milik was sent on in place of Kean. On the hour mark, Rabiot shinned a shot right at Di Gregorio. Two minutes later, the Monza keeper had far more work to do when Soule pulled back for Locatelli, who hit a 17-yard dart to the far post that Di Gregorio somehow poked around the post with one hand as he sprawled to his left. Three minutes later Mari gave the ball right to Milik in his own defensive third, and the Pole dribbled to the edge of the box before drilling a shot to the right-hand post that Di Gregorio leaped up to save, while Di Maria had a shot in the follow-up move blocked behind.

Monza seemed well and truly under siege now, late though the attacking attitude may have been, and for a while it almost felt like a comeback was becoming inevitable. But Di Gregorio kept on doing a Buffon impression. His last, and perhaps most impressive, piece of work came with 15 minutes left, when Di Maria settled a defensive header off a corner and unleashed a swerving 25-yard hit that Di Gregorio soared through the air to parry away.

Juve’s last real shot at making a game of things came with 12 minutes left on the clock. Milik redirected a free kick toward Rabiot, who slid in only to see the way barred by another excellent save. Milik followed the shot, and his poke toward the goal was destined for the net. But Bremer was in an offside position between the ball and the goal, and when it came toward him he instinctively headed it in, prompting the assistant’s flag to go up.

That setback seemed to take the wind out of Juve’s sails, and a hamstring injury to Milik two minutes later that reduced Juve to 10 men becalmed them completely. Monza took back control of the game in the last 10 minutes and nearly put an exclamation mark on the game when substitute Andrea Petagna snuck behind the defense to drive for the far post, this time meeting with a strong save from Szczesny.

As the remaining time bled away and it became clear how the game was going to end, jeers rained down from the stands as Juventus reached a new low even in this incredibly down season.

LE PAGELLE

WOJCIECH SZCZESNY – 6. This would’ve been lower had Caprari’s goal stood, because Szczesny really shouldn’t be getting beaten there. But that goal was disallowed, and Woj did pretty much everything else right the rest of the game. Unfortunately, he was completely let down by his defense.

FEDERICO GATTI – 4.5. He had a much stronger second half (that’s a theme with most of these players) but his first-half struggles are hard to ignore. His actions on Monza’s second goal were inexplicable. He turned to face the ball-carrier even though there were players covering him, leaving Mari a completely open path to the keeper. He has real promise, but mistakes like that are still all too common in his game.

BREMER – 5. Wasn’t particularly bad in defense, but he didn’t impose himself the way he did last week against Atalanta, and he showed a shocking lack of awareness when he invalidated what was going to be a sure goal by Milik. He’s definitely going through a rough patch.

DANILO – 6. One of the few guys who did what he was supposed to do and stayed fighting from beginning to end. Led the team with five tackles and pushed forward hard in the second half as Juve looked to get themselves back into the game.

MATTIA DE SCIGLIO – 4.5. Was lucky to get away with some bad defending on Caprari’s would-be strike, and generally made little impact on either side of the ball. It was a matter of time before Allegri began to deploy one of his favorites, and there was surely a rust factor, but he has to do better against the low-level clubs that will (or should, at least) be his territory as the season wears on.

NICOLO FAGIOLI – 4. Every young player will have a dud from time to time, and my new large adult son (yes, I’m making that official) had one on Sunday. The entire team was out of sync for long stretches, but he looked especially so, particularly when trying to link up with Kean. That’s as much a coaching issue as it is a player execution issue, but we’ll get into that a little later.