Francisco Conceicao denies reports he had a tantrum when substituted in the Juventus win at Celta Vigo. ‘I want that to be clear, because I don’t want untrue things to be said.’
The Portugal international was in the starting XI for the Europa League match in Spain this evening, but was taken off after Nick Woltemade had cancelled out the Hugo Alvarez opener.
Randal Kolo Muani went on to score the winner in stoppages for a 2-1 result, maintaining the 100 per cent record in the Europa League.
However, there were reports that Conceicao reacted angrily to his substitution, that he punched the bench and stormed off straight into the dressing room after a discussion with a member of Luciano Spalletti’s staff.
Conceicao denies Juventus row
“I want to clarify that I did not argue with anyone,” Conceicao told Sky Sport Italia.
“I went off, I hit the area of the bench where I sit down, but I did not have any dialogue with a member of staff. I went into the dressing room to change my shirt, go to the bathroom, and came back out after a few minutes.
“I want that to be clear, because I don’t want any untrue things to be said.”
Spalletti had been pressed on the matter in his post-match interview and hinted that Conceicao “would do well to be angry with himself” for the performance, but also assured his staff denied any altercation.
“We need to talk about the second half performance, as we won, we picked up three important points in the Europa League, and need to keep going like this,” added Conceicao.
Juventus were 1-0 down at the break, so what did Spalletti say to the team in the half-time talk?
“He said that we wouldn’t win if we kept doing this, always late to the ball, to the challenges, to the runs. We had to think first about what we wanted to do, I think we gave a strong response by playing the kind of football that we do in training, we scored two goals and could’ve had many more.
“Now we have to build on this for the following matches.”
There is barely time to get back to Turin when they need to prepare for the next test against Serie A high-flyers Lazio.
“We know that Lazio are in good shape, but we can build on this second half performance, we want to get up there in the table too and pick up three important points.”