Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri admitted he let out a sigh of relief after his team prevailed in a penalty shoot-out to see off Inter Milan in the second leg of their Coppa Italia semifinal.
Allegri's team held a significant 3-0 advantage from the first leg in Turin, but a valiant fightback from Roberto Mancini's team saw the second leg go Inter's way by a final score of 3-0 following 90 minutes of regulation and extra time.
Juventus were spared an embarrassing defeat to Inter, who they had just beaten 2-0 in the Derby d'Italia on Sunday, when Leonardo Bonucci converted his penalty to seal the 5-3 shootout final.
The win puts Juventus through to the finals of the Coppa Italia where they will face AC Milan, who beat third-tier side Alessandria 6-0 on aggregate.
"It wasn't easy to reach the final, as we had such a packed fixture list. First of all I must compliment the lads for what they are doing," Allegri told Rai Sport.
"Of course tonight for 70 minutes we didn't play at all. Inter ran hard and put pressure on us, from that point on we started to move well and created some chances to avoid extra time. After that the lads did well to win on penalties and achieve our objective.
"The first goal was probably a bit of a foul, but having said that we should've dealt with it better and not handed the chance to Inter.
"The second goal was a mistaken challenge, the third a penalty on a 50 metre pass. We have to do better."
Allegri admitted he expected Inter to cause his team problems because he felt the 3-0 advantage from the first leg put his players in a position to feel overconfident and potentially lack concentration.
"This is another part of the growth process, as when you have young players and go into games that seem easy and aren't," Allegri said. "You learn to do better. Inter deserve credit and we deserve criticism.
"Inter were very intense and we didn't keep the right distances. I don't think we managed two consecutive passes in the first half and so we were struggling in possession as well as off. Clearly I didn't prepare them properly for the game.
"Do I say 'phew' after this? A huge phew! A long phew!"