Massimiliano Allegri believes Juventus have nothing to fear against Real Madrid in the Champions League final on Saturday and that there is much more “positivity” around the club than when he arrived in 2014.

No team have fallen at the last hurdle of Europe’s top club competition more often than Juventus . But if that truth was playing on the manager’s mind then he has done a fine job of concealing it in the buildup to the final in Cardiff.

“It’s an important match but we just need to do the same things we have done all year and for the past several years,” he said. “Negativity breeds negativity, positivity breeds positivity. When I arrived there was this great sense of negativity around the club.”

To illustrate the point, Allegri highlighted the way the club’s European Cup history is commonly discussed. “Juventus have played in eight finals – they haven’t just lost six of them [as people say]. Getting there is important in itself. There is only one Champions League final in the world and we are in it.”

He is clear Juventus feel like they belong on this stage. “Since [the 2015 final in] Berlin, we have grown in self-confidence,” he said. “All of us together: myself, the team, and the fans.”

That claim is borne out by Juventus’s performances in Europe this season. Their path to the final two years ago was fraught, taking in a second-place group-stage finish and a 1-0 aggregate win against Monaco. This season they have won all three of their knockout ties by a three-goal margin.

Allegri’s players share his sense the mood has shifted. “We feel better than we did back then,” the defender Giorgio Chiellini said. “We have improved our quality and technique. But just having played in certain matches helps you to arrive at big battles like this one in the best kind of shape.”

That shape is still uncertain, with both manager and defender refusing to be drawn on the details of tactical plans for countering Cristiano Ronaldo and co.

“The formation is all relative,” Chiellini said when asked whether he perceived his role in Allegri’s latest hybrid formation as being part of a back four or back three. “We defend as an 11, so the formation doesn’t change anything. The important thing is willingness and sacrifice, those are the secrets of this year.”

Allegri had said he planned to keep training light under the oppressive afternoon heat on Wednesday and was as good as his word with a session dominated by giant games of piggy in the middle. “We’ve learned how to turn the switch on and off at the right moments,” he added. “We need to keep all our best energy for Saturday night.”