Juventus continue their quest to return the Scudetto to their trophy cabinet after beating Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi on Sunday, having not won it since 2020. The only goal of the game was the work of Fabio Miretti, less than 10 minutes after the first whistle.
The game
Fiorentina showed attacking intent right from the start, but Juventus pulled off a proper Catenaccio performance to lock the game down after scoring early. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Viola had the ball at their feet for 69% of the time and took a total of 25, yes 25, shots, without scoring. Juventus, on the other hand, fired towards Fiorentina goalkeeper Pietro Terracciano just four times, committed 21 fouls, misplaced a third of the total number of attempted passes – and still won the game.
Deployed by Massimiliano Allegri in a 3-5-2 formation, the visitors had Gleison Bremer commanding the back line also consisting of Daniele Rugani and Federico Gatti, the midfield trio of Manuel Locatelli, Adrien Rabiot and Fabio Miretti flanked by Filip Kostic on the left and Weston McKennie on the right, and with Federico Chiesa supporting Moise Kean upfront, as Dusan Vlahovic and Arkadiusz Milik both waited on the bench. But the most important part of the team was arguably Wojciech Szczesny in goal, who pulled off a few difficult saves to prevent the home side from scoring.
On the other hand, Vincenzo Italiano arranged his men in a 4-2-3-1. Lucas Martinez Quarta and Luca Ranieri were in the heart of defence, with Fabiano Parisi on the right and Cristiano Biraghi on the left. Juventus loanee Arthur Melo partnered Rolando Mandragora in the middle of the park, and the trio of Nico Gonzalez, Antonin Barak and Christian Kouame played just behind striker Lucas Beltran.
Despite their midfield section being stacked with five players in a line, Juventus never really tried to compete for domination in the middle of the park, but the way they closed ranks whenever Fiorentina moved into the attacking third was truly impressive. It forced the home side to try their luck from distance quite frequently, but nothing flew towards Szczesny with sufficient power and precision to beat him. Gonzalez and Biraghi came closest, but the Poland international was ready for their efforts and made fine saves on both occasions.
As the second half wore on, Italiano tried to change a few things by refreshing his attacking ranks. Riccardo Sotill, Jonathan Ikone and M’bala Nzola all got their chance to make an impact off the bench, but there was no putting anything past Juventus on the evening.
Looking ahead
A thing worth noting in this match is the fact that Rabiot earned a yellow card in the 43rd minute, his fifth of the season. It means he’ll be suspended for the upcoming game against Cagliari, but then he’ll be free of the burden when his team travel to face table toppers Inter after the international break. It appears to have been a smart way to clear his record, though it was also quite risky as he played through the entire second half on a booking.
For the time being, Juventus sit second in the Serie A table with a two-point deficit behind Inter, four points ahead of AC Milan, and five ahead of reigning champions Napoli.
As for Fiorentina, whatever pride may say, they shouldn’t be too hard on themselves after this game. Their performance was far from bad, and very few teams (if any) would’ve been able to score against Juventus in a game like this.
Still, there’s no hiding from the fact that Italiano has a lot of work to do to turn this team into proper contenders for the top four. Right now, they’re eighth, four points behind Napoli in fourth, two behind Atalanta in fifth, just one behind Bologna in sixth, and on the same tally as AS Roma in seventh.
Obviously, a lot can change after the next round already, especially as it’s Bologna who come to the Artemio Franchi, but before that, the Viola have the task of facing Serbian minnows Cukaricki in the Europa Conference League.
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