Juventus Top Perfomers – Coppa Italia Semis vs Inter – First Leg

The rematch with Inter started off similarly to the recent Serie A tilt, but in this case the Nerazzurri, which were nearly perfect on that occasion, committed a pair of grave mistakes and the Old Lady pounced, bulding a commanding lead going into the second leg in a week.

Cristiano Ronaldo: his January had been quiet for his standards, but he showed up big time on a big stage, converting a penalty kick with authority and more importantly stripping Alessandro Bastoni on a defensive snafu involving also Samir Handanovic, and putting it in the empty net with the most surgical of shots. Since the team sat back in the second half, he did not have many chances, and some fast-breaks were poorly conducted by the two forwards, but he surely made the most of his opportunities. 

Merih Demiral: it was a rollercoaster ride for the defense, which started off poorly with Nicolò Barella and Lautaro Martinez outworking Alex Sandro and Matthijs De Ligt on the initial goal and Gianluigi Buffon failing to parry away a central shot. However, things improved throughout the match, even though at the end the rearguard was really holding on for dear life on the multiple raids by the opponents. Both the Dutch starlet and especially the legendary goalkeeper atoned for their early mistakes, the former with some deciding blocks, the later with a huge save on unabated Matteo Darmian inside the six-yard box. Merih Demiral was not involved in the early blunder and he too prevented a goal with a very timely and energetic goal-line clearance and brought the hustle throughout the match. Juan Cuadrado was sly as a fox in drawing the penalty kick, while Sandro mostly looked unfocused.

Adrien Rabiot: he was not the most involved but he was the steadiest contributor in the midfield, even if without noteworthy flashes, simply distributing the ball tidily and bringing his physicality and technique to the fray when needed. Rodrigo Bentancur instead had a lot more touches, played with confidence and dished some brilliant passes, but also a pair of misplaced balls that did not directly led to major chances for the adversaries only by chance. West McKennie seemed stranded out on the flank and has not look super good recently, maybe he is a little banged up. Dejan Kulusevski did okay as second-striker: while his ball handling left something to be desired at times, in particular when there was soon room to take on defenders in open spaces, he was impeccable in the passive phase, man-marking Marcelo Brozovic with great tenacity and therefore hurting Inter’s build-up.

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