Joao Pedro had given Cagliari a shock lead, but Matthijs de Ligt and Dusan Vlahovic turned it around for a surprisingly hard-fought Juventus victory in Sardinia.
Confidence was low for both sides, the Bianconeri fresh from a home defeat to Inter that ruled them out of the title race, while the Sardinians had lost four on the bounce and sat just above the relegation zone. Alvaro Morata and Mattia De Sciglio were suspended, with Manuel Locatelli, Weston McKennie, Federico Chiesa, Kaio Jorge and Marley Ake injured. Alberto Grassi sat out a ban, joining Edoardo Goldaniga, Luca Ceppitelli, Nahitan Nandez and Kevin Strootman in the stands, but Leonardo Pavoletti and Razvan Marin returned after COVID.
After 10 minutes of almost total Juve possession, Cagliari took the lead. Marin tackled Paulo Dybala in his own half, sprinted forward, rolled across for Joao Pedro to take a touch and smash into the far top corner from just inside the box.
Luca Pellegrini had the ball in the net with a decisive deflection off Adrien Rabiot to wrong-foot Alessio Cragno on 23 minutes. However, it was disallowed via VAR because Rabiot deflected it with his elbow.
Serie A Liveblog: Empoli-Spezia, Inter-Verona, Cagliari-Juventus
Dybala’s free kick skimmed the near top corner, then the Argentine’s volley was straight at Cragno, while Rabiot fired over from a promising position after Leonardo Pavoletti gave it away cheaply.
Cragno fingertipped a Juan Cuadrado screamer round the near post, but Juventus equalised on the resulting corner when Cuadrado floated a ball onto the head of Matthijs de Ligt at the back post, steering it back across the goalkeeper.
Juve had another goal disallowed within two minutes of the restart, as Giorgio Chiellini was offside when redirecting a scuffed shot.
Chiellini’s sensational slide-rule pass released Dybala only for La Joya to fire over, while Vlahovic hit the side-netting from a tricky angle.
Juventus introduced Federico Bernardeschi and moved to a 4-2-3-1 formation. Cuadrado’s shot flashed across the face of goal and Vlahovic tested Cragno after squirming between defenders.
Vlahovic was working very hard against a crowd of Cagliari defenders and it paid off in the end. He ran onto a Dybala through ball, Giorgio Altare’s sliding tackle ended up almost kicking it onto Vlahovic’s boot to toe-poke in from close range.
Raoul Bellanova saw his strike charged down, as Juve held out in defence for the final stages.
Cagliari 1-2 Juventus
Joao Pedro 10 (C), De Ligt 45 (J), Vlahovic 75 (J)
Well deserved. Only 1 team turned up to play against 12 men.
lol the performance was shocking as was to be expected with the exception of Cuadrado, their only reliable player who never gives up. Udinese put 5 past them with ease and watching Juventus play is like seeing a lawn mower out of control.
Frustrating watching Cuadrado today. I’m sure he has a phobia of crossing the ball in the box.
Gamal Cuadrado is the only Juventus player who looks capable of doing something and he has the fighting spirit. All this talk about Arthur and he basically let Pedro shoot without putting in a challenge. As for Rabiot the less the better. Turning his back like a chicken and last but not least Allegri for making me sleep for 75 mins.
😂 😂 😂. @Kieran that is what happens when watching Juventus and an Allegri team. The win is the most important thing and Dybala leaving for Inter is a blessing in disguise for him as he is not suited to Allegri and vice versa. Vlahovic should take not of Ronaldo’s worst season in football and he forgot who was the coach. Hard times and even more sleep needed over the next couple of seasons with the bald dinosaur in charge.
You would have expected Miretti to find some minutes.
Despite some of the comments above, this poor Juve team are still 4th in a dire year and played Inter off the park last week. I’d say they were unlucky but then they played against a ref team too. So what does that say about those above them in the league?
@Fate 4th is a disgrace by Juventus standards. They have a better squad then Milan and a deeper bench then Napoli. They have failed to win against the top 3 and Atalanta. Allegri celebrating Danilo’s equaliser in stoppages in Bergamo as if he had won the world cup wreaks of poor standards that are not part of Juve’s culture. Only Inter have a superior squad and they should be top but will still win in the end as they have VAR to help out when needed. That said Juventus should be in second place given their squad, highest wage bill and resources that are still above the rest. Terrible coach but they have no plan and went back to him and now have to live with the mess for at 3 years unless they fail to get a spot in the champions league.
@fate … your analysis sucks.
@ricky I totally agree with you.
@ricky So are you saying that Juve should win the league every single year? Is Italian football the same as Scotland? The disgrace is Inter struggling this year as holding champions with a team built to win the league, who have been working together for years and should progress further in the CL. None of that is happening. Juve are in transition and had it not been for a terrible start to the season, would be comfortably first place. Juve will win it next year easily, so no it’s not a disaster after coming off a huge winning cycle.
@MG You must be glad there’s Juve in the league otherwise you’d have nothing to talk about. Juve won, end of story. When all is said and done, in a disastrous season for Juve, they’re still only points behind the top spot. A mediocre Juve team is still biting at the heels of teams that are already supposed to be great. Analyse that. Go back to PS5.
But @Fate Allegri is still playing on his Atari 2600 in 2022.