Leandro Paredes and Federico Chiesa set up Danilo’s late winner, as Juventus keep marching up the table with an eighth consecutive victory and clean sheet against Udinese.
There was a minute’s silence before kick-off for Gianluca Vialli and Ernesto Castano, with Gianluca Pessotto reading out an emotional open letter to his captain.
The Bianconeri had Angel Di Maria back with Adrien Rabiot able to start too, but Gleison Bremer joined Leonardo Bonucci, Juan Cuadrado, Paul Pogba, Dusan Vlahovic, Mattia De Sciglio and Kaio Jorge on the treatment table. Udinese had lost only two of their last 15 games, despite missing Gerard Deulofeu and Adam Masina.
Wojciech Szczesny had to parry a Walace header at the back post on a corner, with Marco Silvestri doing the same on Daniele Rugani from a free kick and Moise Kean blasting just wide.
Di Maria sent Kean through on goal to be denied by alert Silvestri at the near post and Szczesny used his chest to smother a Walace daisy-cutter from distance.
After the restart, Kean fired inches over the bar and Silvestri rushed out to narrow the angle on Filip Kostic, while nobody was ready for the tap-in on an Adrien Rabiot ball across the face of goal.
Di Maria dinked a ball over the top for Leandro Paredes, but his fellow World Cup winner went down far too easily under pressure from Rodrigo Becao just before Fideo went off with a calf problem.
Nehuen Perez made a crucial interception on Filip Kostic’s assist for Arkadiusz Milik, then the Poland international was caught napping as he didn’t expect two defenders to fluff their clearance.
Juventus finally broke through in the final minutes when Leandro Paredes floated a ball over the top for Federico Chiesa to control with his chest and volley it across the face of goal for Danilo’s tap-in at the back post.
Chiesa also threatened to score himself in stoppages only for a desperate block in the box.
Juventus 1-0 Udinese
Danilo 86 (J)
As usual, Loca was the flop. Miretti was also disappointing.
Loca is an OK squad player but certainly no leader. Good to see Rabiot stepping up but there’s still a lot of garbage in midfield.