A week ago, Juventus went into a difficult stadium to play in and got absolutely everything wrong. They never gave themselves a chance to come up with a point or three against the defending champions (barf), who were perhaps at their most vulnerable.
It was critical not to do the same on Sunday’s game against Bologna at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara. The Rossoblu were a direct competitor for the European places, sitting only two points ahead of Juve in sixth. A victory would vault them at least one place in the standings,
potentially two depending on what happens Monday night between Roma and Como, putting them right back into the race for the top four.
And in perhaps their most important test of the domestic season to date, they passed.
They didn’t ace it. The match was a strange one that saw the two teams get up and down the field for large portions, only to fizzle out at the end. True two teams combined for 24 shots, but only hit the target with seven of them. Several of those were met with spectacular saves by Michele Di Gregorio, and one, single, solitary shot was headed into the Bologna goal in the 64th minute, three minutes after the man taking it, Juan Cabal, took the field as a substitute.
Juve were resilient enough to keep Vincenzo Italiano’s Bologna side out for the rest of the night, thanks in part to the buoying return of Bremer, and partly because Torbjørn Heggem was sent off not long after Juve took the lead for denial of a goalscoring opportunity. The 1-0 win did exactly what Juve needed—provide momentum headed into another big match next week, and jumping them up the table as they attempt to recover from their shaky start.
The Bianconeri came into the game on a five-game draw streak at the Dall’Ara. Luciano Spalletti missed Dusan Vlahovic, Federico Gatti, Arkadiusz Milik, and Carlo Pinsoglio due to injury, but had plenty to fill in his 3-4-2-1 formation. Di Gregorio started in goal behind Pierre Kalulu, Lloyd Kelly, and Teun Koopmeiners. Weston McKennie and Andrea Cambiaso were the wing-backs, with Manuel Locatelli and Khéphren Thuram manning the midfield. Francisco Conceição and Kenan Yildiz supported Jonathan David in attack.
Italiano’s biggest missing piece was starting goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski, while Remo Frueler, Nicolò Casale, and Martin Vitik were also on on the treatment table. Federico Ravaglia took up Skorupski’s gloves behind a 4-2-3-1 setup. Nadir Zortea, Jhon Lucumì, Heggem, and Juan Miranda made up the defense, and Nikolo Moro and Tommaso Pobega formed the double pivot in midfield. Former Juve prospect Riccardo Orsolini joined Lewis Ferguson and Nicolò Cambiaghi in support of Thaijs Dallinga in the attack.
Things started quickly. Conceição had a shot blocked within seconds of kickoff, and in the fifth minute Di Gregorio was forced into a double save off a free kick. His first parry of a flick by Pobega was, frankly, poor, going straight to an unmarked Orsolini at the back post, but he recovered immediately and got in front of the follow-up, saving Orsolini’s shot with his shoulder.
Juve found some success trying to find David and Yildiz behind the defense, but the forwards were never able to take those positions and set up a shot. Final passes were slightly off-target, or defenders recovered in time to divert the attacker away from the goal. Bologna tried to get some long balls up to Dallinga, but Kelly repeatedly beat him in the air, keeping him in his pocket for almost the entire match. Just after the half-hour mark another nearly-there chance went begging when Yildiz again got behind the defense but couldn’t get his pass to David. Cambiaso put the clearance back into the box to a good run from McKennie, but the American flicked his header wide.
There were just under 10 minutes left in the first half when Juve thought they had the lead. Ravaglia ventured out of his goal to get to a flicked header by David, but McKennie beat him to it. With the goal completely open McKennie squared the ball back to David, who easily rolled the ball into the goal only to turn and see the flag go up on the far side. The assistant had correctly spotted McKennie a body length offside when David made his flick.
There was one last scare in the first half when Zortea made a great run into the channel and got onto the end of a feed from Orsolini, but he slammed his shot into the crossbar, with a little bit of help from the fingertips of Di Gregorio.
The second half started without much in the way of goalmouth action, and Spalletti made his first changes around the hour mark, sending on Cabal and Loïs Openda for David and Cambiaso. Less than three minutes later, the Colombian put Juve in front. After Openda set up Yildiz for a thunderous shot that was blocked behind by Heggem, the ensuing corner was taken short and Yildiz sent in a perfect cross for Cabal, who had evaded the attentions of Zortea and was completely unmarked to head the ball down and into the net.
Italiano immediately went to his bench, hoping for a spark by sending on Castro for a completely ineffective Dallinga, but everything changed moments later. Openda was in the thick of things again, taking advantage of some bad defending from Heggem, who let a long ball from Di Gregorio bounce, giving the Belgian the room he needed to take off running. Heggem had no chance of catching him for pace and hauled him down at the top of the penalty arc, prompting an immediate red card from referee Davide Massa for denying a goalscoring opportunity.
With 15 minutes left in regular time Juve fans were given another reason to cheer when Gleison Bremer appeared at the touchline. He came on for Koopmeiners, taking his usual place in the middle of the back three. A few minutes later Lucumí was lucky not to give away a penalty after placing a hand firmly into Conceição’s face, then followed that by grabbing the diminutive winger like a sack of flour and trying to haul him back to his feet. Either action ought to have been looked at by VAR, but neither was, and Italiano expediently took off Lucumí several minutes later, replacing him with an old friend: Federico Bernardeschi.
The last 10 minutes were a clinic in seeing a game out. Openda was unlucky not to score in the first minute of added time when Ravaglia made an excellent reaction save on a first-time shot from 12 yards, but Bologna were never close to tying the game, limited to a couple of long-range shots by Bernardeschi that weren’t troubling to Di Gregorio. Massa’s whistle pierced the air for a final time right after the five minutes of stoppages were up, and Juve picked up what was likely their biggest domestic victory under Spalletti so far.
