Ronaldo Breaks Scoring Drought as Juventus Conquer Italian Super Cup

Italian Football, Juventus, Napoli, Serie A, Super Cup

It took so long to see Napoli and Juventus face each other this season – following the notorious drama of their cancelled Serie A game in September. The long wait didn’t necessarily produce a spectacular match in the Italian Super Cup on Wednesday night, though Juventus legitimized their 2-0 win with a dominating second period after a dull and goalless first half.

The Supercoppa Italiana is thus bianconera for the 10th time in history as Cristiano Ronaldo broke his scoring drought to tally his 20th seasonal goal and Lorenzo Insigne missed a penalty that could have potentially changed the course of the clash. That was what made the difference in tonight’s game, before Alvaro Morata would set the score at 2-0 for Juve well into stoppage time.

The Super Cup came back to its home soil after the last two editions were played in Saudi Arabia. It was contested at the Mapei Stadium – Città del Tricolore in Reggio Emilia, the home of Sassuolo. Too bad that no fans could watch it, as the stands were gloomily empty as we’ve been used to see for many months by now.

There were some news in Andrea Pirlo’s lineup: Juan Cuadrado finally tested negative for Covid and was promptly reinstated in his right back position, supporting Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Danilo at the back. Weston McKennie was deployed as right wing-back with Federico Chiesa on the other flank, while Arthur and Rodrigo Bentancur covered the middle of the park. Dejan Kulusevski was chosen to join CR7 on the front line.

Gennaro Gattuso, on the other hand, deployed his ideal defense with Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mario Rui on the two sides, flanking center-backs Kalidou Koulibaly and Kostas Manolas. Tiémoué Bakayoko and Diego Demme played in a double pivot role, while lone striker Andrea Petagna was supported by trequartisti Hirving Lozano, Piotr Zielinski and Lorenzo Insigne. In goal, it was time again for David Ospina ahead of Alex Meret.

The first half was a cagey affair with neither team able to put up a good show. The defenses cancelled out each other’s shy attempts to score, with the Partenopei center-backs having no problem to marshal these days’ anonymous version of Cristiano Ronaldo.

The first action came only after 11 minutes and was for Juventus, with Dejan Kulusevski setting Danilo free in the box and the Brazilian calling Napoli’s David Ospina to action. A goal would not have been valid anyway, as the assistant referee had already raised his flag.

For Napoli, Lorenzo Insigne’s curl from a set piece gave no scare to Wojciech Szczesny. But the Pole had  to work much harder on 28 minutes as the Partenopei came up with the most dangerous threat in the first period. Diego Demme’s work in the box was brilliant, and his cross found Hirving Lozano ready to best Danilo and head the ball right into the back of the net – had not been for Szczesny’s fabulous save.

Referee Paolo Valeri blew for the break with no added time, a clear sign that the match was still far from catching fire.

Andrea Pirlo was the first to try to shake things up after the restart as he sent in Federico Bernardeschi for his fellow namesake Chiesa. Indeed, the former Fiorentina winger immediately went inches away from opening the scoring, but missed the killer instinct to slot the ball home from a McKennie cross from a tight angle.

On 54 minutes, Ronaldo almost profited of a misunderstanding between Ospina and Manolas, but his sudden shot to anticipate both from a brilliant Arthur cross didn’t quite hit the goal target.

Juventus were the better team now and scoring was an obvious consequence. On 63 minutes, CR7 broke in from the right flank and served McKennie a golden assist, with Kostas Manolas managing to anticipate the American. But, from the resulting corner, that ball flipped into the Partenopei‘s box and found Ronaldo’s deadly volley for Juventus’ opener.

Coach Gattuso needed some new ideas: Elif Elmas replaced an inconsistent Bakayoko, then Dries Mertens took Petagna’s place for the last 20 minutes, the Belgian coming back from a one-month injury. Just like in Pirlo’s case, the move seemed to have an effect as Mertens was crippled in the box by McKennie and referee Valeri could not but point at the penalty spot after checking the VAR.

But Lorenzo Insigne squandered a massive chance to draw level as he sent his penalty shot crashing into the sideline banners on Wojciech Szczesny’s right.

A flurry of changes redesigned both side setups for the final push: In came Adrien Rabiot and Alvaro  Morata for Juventus, as well as Matteo Politano and Fernando Llorente for the Partenopei.

There was a Cristiano Ronaldo shot denied by David Ospina but nothing seemed bound to happen in the last minutes dogfight. Not for lack of trying on the part of Napoli, if truth be told: Three minutes into added time, it took another super save from Szczesny to keep Juve ahead, the Polish custodian using his reflexes to parry back a Giorgio Chiellini deflection from a Lozano desperate attempt.

The Partenopei were – understandably – totally unbalanced and thus fatally exposed themselves to a textbook fast break that enabled Morata to write his name into the scorecard just before Valeri would blow for full time.

That was enough for Andrea Pirlo to win his first trophy as a coach and for Juventus to recover from their shocking upset at the hand of Inter from three days earlier. If Pirlo needed some answers from his boys, at least when it comes to mental fortitude, the mission was accomplished.

 

MATCH REPORT

January 20, 2021 – Supercoppa Italiana 2020-21
JUVENTUS-NAPOLI 2-0

SCORERS: 64′ Cristiano Ronaldo, 95′ Morata

JUVENTUS (4-4-2): Szczesny; Cuadrado, Bonucci, Chiellini, Danilo; McKennie, Arthur, Bentancur (84′ Rabiot), Chiesa (46′ Bernardeschi); Kulusevski (84′ Morata), Cristiano Ronaldo (Buffon, Pinsoglio, Di Pardo, Dragusin, Frabotta, Ramsey, Fagioli, Ranocchia) Coach: Pirlo
NAPOLI (4-2-3-1): Ospina; Di Lorenzo, Manolas, Koulibaly, Mario Rui (84′ Politano); Bakayoko (67′ Elmas), Demme (85′ Llorente); Lozano, Zielinski, Insigne; Petagna (72′ Mertens) (Meret, Contini, Ghoulam, Hysaj, Maksimovic, Rrahmani, Lobotka, Cioffi) Coach: Gattuso

REFEREE: Mr. Valeri from Rome
NOTES: Yellow Cards: Cristiano Ronaldo (J), Zielinski (N); Extra Time: 1st Half 0′, 2nd Half 5′

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