Juventus must find a way to cope with Dortmund's pressure

While Dortmund have been based around heavy, energetic pressing and rapid transitions in recent years, Juventus are much more accustomed to a slow, more languid style of play. Juve themselves play at a higher tempo than the majority of Serie A sides, but Italy is nevertheless still home to a much slower style of play than in Germany, Spain or England.
There are many benefits to this: It means deep-lying playmakers like Andrea Pirlo, David Pizarro and Riccardo Montolivo have time to shine, while attackers like Francesco Totti and Antonio Di Natale can play well into their late 30s, because the game isn't so physically demanding and they can essentially play in bursts. "The pauses allow a player to display his technique," Gianluca Vialli once said.
The downside, however, is that when Italian sides face top-quality opposition in European competition, they often struggle with the pace of the game, which has been a major reason Serie A has dropped to only the fourth-best league in Europe according to UEFA's coefficients.
The most recent example of this problem was on Thursday night at White Hart Lane, where Fiorentina drew 1-1 with Tottenham. Vincenzo Montella's side were happy with that result, although the first half hour featured a Spurs onslaught. Mauricio Pochettino, a coach known primarily for the intense pressing style he's implemented at both Southampton and now Tottenham, told his team to play at a high tempo, close down in advanced positions, and make life uncomfortable for Fiorentina. Once they'd weathered the storm, the Italian side were fine. In truth, however, they could have been 3-0 down and out of the tie.
After the game, Montella responded to questions about these struggles in great detail, and it was fascinating to hear him discuss the issue in relation to Italy as a whole, rather than simply speaking about the contest between two sides.
"In the first 30 minutes we suffered because of the high-tempo, physical game, but we expected that and maybe [Tottenham] paid the price later," he said. "In Italy we play a more tactical game, the tempo is slow -- we [Italians] train at a high tempo, then don't play at high tempo on matchday. Really, we should be doing the opposite!"