Juventus coach Max Allegri says Champions League tie with Villarreal will go down to wire

“It may need 120 minutes,” Max Allegri suggested, surveying the taut circumstances of the challenge facing Juventus this evening in Turin.

The head coach of Juve could barely have hoped for a better start to the last-16 meeting with Villarreal three weeks ago, taking the lead in the first leg in Spain after less than 15 seconds.

But he knew he was up against an expert in knockout football. The equaliser for Unai Emery’s team duly arrived, midway through the second half.

Allegri and Unai Emery are old hands at the nip-and-tuck of late-stage European competition, with over 250 matches between them as managers in Uefa competitions. Both are in their current jobs having been repatriated, to restore a certain authority to their clubs.

Emery, a Spaniard and a three-times winner of the Europa League while at Sevilla, was hired by Villarreal after what were often bruising stints at Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal. Back home, he answered expectations perfectly, Villarreal celebrating their first major trophy with victory, on penalties, over Manchester United in the Europa League final at the end of his first season.

Allegri last summer returned to the Juventus he had left as Serie A champions in 2019. He travelled widely, while being extensively courted abroad over the next 18 months. But he was choosy about possible jobs, eventually persuaded to return to Turin.

There he found a greater frailty at Juventus than when he had left them as winners, for the club’s eighth season in succession, of Serie A with a 11-point margin over the 2018-19 runners-up, Napoli.

The following season, under Maurizio Sarri, they retained the title but held off Inter Milan’s title challenge only by a point. Last season, under Andrea Pirlo, Juventus