Juventus squeezed past Sassuolo in the final minute thanks to Paulo Dybala and a deflected Dusan Vlahovic effort, setting up a Coppa Italia semi-final with the Serbian’s former club Fiorentina.
The Bianconeri had Leonardo Bonucci and Alex Sandro back from injury, again starting new signings Dusan Vlahovic and Denis Zakaria, but resting Alvaro Morata. The Neroverdi made some changes, but kept star trio Domenico Berardi, Giacomo Raspadori and Gianluca Scamacca upfront.
It took under three minutes to break the deadlock, as Alex Sandro pulled back from the by-line for a scuffed Weston McKennie effort, which was deflected up into the air, Paulo Dybala meeting it on the volley from 12 yards.
Sassuolo fought back, Matthijs de Ligt pushing a Domenico Berardi angled drive onto the side-netting, then Mattia Perin making the save on Berardi after a Bonucci error and seeing his gloves stung by Georgios Kyriakopoulos.
Coppa Italia Liveblog: Atalanta-Fiorentina and Juventus-Sassuolo
The equaliser was coming and it arrived with style, as Junior Hamed Traore exchanged passes with Scamacca, cut inside past two defenders and curled a magnificent right-foot finish into the far top corner.
McKennie’s diving header on another Alex Sandro cross was smothered, along with Vlahovic running onto an inspired Bonucci through ball.
Scamacca nodded a couple of good opportunities over the bar, but McKennie saw his right-foot curler smack against the far post with Gianluca Pegolo beaten.
Max Allegri did not want to go to extra time with a huge Serie A clash against Atalanta coming up, so introduced Alvaro Morata and Manuel Locatelli.
Pegolo used his legs to deny Vlahovic on a smart McKennie through ball, then Gian Marco Ferrari made a desperate block on Morata following the give-and-go with Vlahovic.
There was an extraordinary triple Juventus chance on 73 minutes on a Dybala free kick, as McKennie’s header was parried from point-blank range, De Ligt turned the rebound onto the upright and Bonucci couldn’t keep the third attempt on target.
Vlahovic sent Morata clear moments later, but the lob didn’t surprise Pegolo one-on-one. The 40-year-old goalkeeper made a simply amazing save on Adrien Rabiot’s looping header from a McKennie throw-in, reaching back at full stretch to claw it out from under the bar.
Pegolo was finally beaten by a cruel deflection, because Vlahovic ran onto the Dybala through ball, turned Mert Muldur near the corner flag and cut inside for a shot that changed direction off Ruan Tressoldi to surprise the goalkeeper.
Juventus 2-1 Sassuolo
Dybala 3 (J), Traore 24 (S), Tressoldi og 88 (J)
2 in 2 for the new man.
He’ll be booed relentlessly away to Fiorentina lol.