What seemed a pipe dream last month has become a reality as Juventus took another step toward re-joining the Serie A top-four race. The record-time Italian champions completed a league double over Hellas Verona, courtesy of a 1-0 home win on Saturday night.
Juventus headed into March’s international break in high spirits after a closely-contested 1-0 win over Inter in the Derby d’Italia made it six wins out of seven in the league for Massimiliano Allegri’s side. Despite a 15-point deduction in January, the record-time Serie A champions had a colossal opportunity to rekindle their top-four hopes following Inter’s lackluster 1-0 home defeat to Fiorentina earlier on Saturday.
Up to seventh, only seven points adrift of fourth-placed Milan, Juventus knew victory over relegation-threatened Verona would blow the top-four race wide open. In the meantime, having mustered just two points from their last five league matches, Marco Zaffaroni’s men never stood a real chance in Turin, aware they’d have to seek must-needed points elsewhere.
However, with five points separating them from safety ahead of the kick-off, the Rossoblu fought tooth and nail to hold Juventus at bay. Without Serbian stars Dusan Vlahovic and Filip Kostic, Allegri’s team could not break down Verona’s defensive block in the first half.
Arkadiusz Milik and Moise Kean barely influenced the early proceedings as Juventus struggled to find a way past Zaffaroni’s rock-solid defensive set-up. Indeed, Juventus completed the first half without a single attempt on target despite enjoying 64% of possession.
Not until the 37th minute had Juventus had any meaningful play in the front third. Even their best chance of the first half came through Danilo’s well-taken free-kick from the edge of the box. Unfortunately for the Bianconeri captain, his devastating effort rattled off the right post.
But while Juventus couldn’t find a recipe to put Verona goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipo to the test, they did a stellar job holding the visitors at a safe distance. Goalscoring opportunities were at a premium on both ends throughout the first half, resulting in a 0-0 halftime scoreline.
Allegri came to regret his decision to field several second-string players already at the break. Instead of Argentine whizz-kid Enzo Barrenechea, Fabio Miretti started the second half as Juventus intensified pressure on Verona, seeking a sought-after opener.
It took them ten minutes into the second half to break the deadlock from their first shot on target. After being quiet in the opening 45 minutes, Kean picked up Manuel Locatelli’s defense-splitting pass inside Verona’s box and effortlessly placed the ball past Montipo and into the bottom right corner to put Juventus in front in the 55th minute.
Kean’s strike tucked Juventus into their comfort zone, letting them control the rest of the game without breaking a sweat despite refusing to show excessive scoring ambitions. Likewise, Verona must have been aware of their faint chance to fight back the moment they fell behind, failing to do anything noteworthy in the offensive third.
As ever, Juventus sucked the pace out of the match after going ahead, putting their well-documented time-wasting tactics to good use again. But Verona nearly made their hosts pay the price for losing interest in entertaining the Turin crowd.
Second-half substitute Filippo Terracciano drilled a shot from the edge of the box, forcing Wojciech Szczesny to make a diving save to deny Verona an equalizer in the 83rd minute. Juventus received the note and looked to repay the favor as Gleison Bremer somehow failed to hit an empty net from a few yards out a couple of minutes later.
In addition to closing the gap on the coveted fourth place, Juventus made history on Saturday by beating Verona for the third time on the spin without conceding, an unprecedented feat in their H2H duels. Meanwhile, the visitors’ ponderous run of scoring one goal or fewer now stands at nine straight league matches.
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