Serie A championsJuventus will be looking to get their title defence off to a good start when they take on Udinese on Sunday afternoon.
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That game showed that the gap between Juventus and the peninsula’s other big clubs appeared to remain intact, but Udinese exploited their weaknesses to snatch a shocking 1-0 victory.
Juve’s defeat ended their 47-match unbeaten home league record – a run stretching back to January 2013 – and ensured that the Turin side began their pursuit of a fifth straight title in miserable fashion.
On the European front they could find it more hard to repeat last season’s heroics in a rebuilding phase, but one thing we learned from past year was that you write Juve off at your own peril. “But we should have defended better for their goal”.
Inter Milan needed a stoppage time goal from debutant Stevan Jovetic to beat Atalanta 1-0. The Colombian striker had an insane goal-per-minute ratio, but of course the situation is much different now: Udinese are not as offensive-minded as Napoli was, but he has the tools (physicality, quickness, finishing skills) to establish himself as an excellent centre-forward.
Newly-promoted Carpi missed a penalty in its first ever match in Serie A as it lost 5-2 at Sampdoria, which had David Ivan sent off late on.
Chievo scored three times in nine minutes as they came from behind to win 3-1 at Empoli and Abdelhamid El Kaoutari scored in stoppage time to give Palermo a 1-0 win over Genoa. The absences of Claudio Marchisio, Sami Khedira and Kwadwo Asamoah mean that Massimiliano Allegri will have to be creative and postpone the debut of his trademark diamond formation, opting for a 3-5-2 that would allow him to have more alternatives on the bench. Udinese want to put the demons of their past two seasons behind them, and beating Juventus in Turin would be a fantastic way to help do just that. A Juve counter was launched by Coman but a Udinese boot came to the rescue after Mandzukic headed the Frenchman’s cross into Pereyra’s path yards from goal.
“It wasn’t an easy game but we did create plenty of chances”.
Both Fiorentina and Milan had new managers in Paulo Sousa and Sinisa Mihajlovic respectively.
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Milan goalkeeper Diego Lopez – who had pulled off a stunning save moments earlier – guessed the right way but could not prevent Ilicic’s spot-kick from going into the bottom right corner.
