Juventus replicated the exact same performance they had in Lecce on Wednesday and it almost ended with the same result, if it was not for a blatant mistake by an opponent and a perfect Cristiano Ronaldo penalty to save the day.
Leonardo Bonucci (3 points): the back-line produced a goal with the interim captain, who was very foxy in cashing in on an uncertainty by Andrei Radu for a pretty comfortable header. However, they gift wrapped another goal to the enemies, this time with Alex Sandro being the culprit with a schoolboy error, as those errant passes should never even considered, let alone actually made, in that area. Daniele Rugani was rusty and it showed and he risked being sent off way too often. He could be a reclamation project down the line, but this was not the right game to trot him out.
Rodrigo Bentancur (1 point): the midfielder that stood out the most was also the one that was red carded, Adrien Rabiot, who had a fantastic impact with a pair of quality plays, but also was too naïve after being booked and was quite deservedly sent to the locker room in advance. Very mixed bag out of him. Bentancur set up Bonucci’s header with a corner kick and was passable while facing the tall task of replacing Miralem Pjanic. Rinse and repeat for Sami Khedira and Blaise Matuidi: the former is nearly invisible if he does have not scoring opportunities, the latter at least runs down opponents and brings his hustle to the table. Juan Cuadrado was the usual threat with his motor down the flank. Aaron Ramsey looked way behind in terms of conditioning after subbing in, but he will need to take some lumps in order to get fit.
Cristiano Ronaldo (4 points): the Portuguese ace gets the shine for the aplomb he displayed late in the box, where he drew the penalty by easily bamboozling Antonio Sanabria and then converted it in the uncatchable manner, but he actually had the worst showing among the trio of attackers and, before playing hero, he had few uncharacteristic misses. Paulo Dybala and Federico Bernardeschi were instead constant thorns in the adversaries’ side with their technique and shooting. The ex-Fiorentina man just missed the target on a pair of robust attempts, while La Joya was miraculously denied by the goalie on his best attempts. Douglas Costa looked pretty good for somebody that was coming back after 45 days and almost found the market from downtown.
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