Juventus beat Sevilla 2-0 in Turin on Wednesday during the second round of group-stage games in the UEFA Champions League.
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Milan’s miserable start to the season continued as they were outclassed by Napoli in front of their own aghast fans, the first time they have lost by such a scoreline at the San Siro since 2009.
Roma will try to bounce back from Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat at BATE Borisov in the Champions League when they travel to Sicily to face Palermo.
Fifth-placed Lazio play at home to league newcomers Frosinone this weekend looking to make it three wins in a row and keep the pace with the front-runners in the championship. If that is the case then those two wins are crucial for Juve. Juve has lost only one of their last 25 league games against Bologna (W16). They come into this game sitting 19th in the table and will likely be fighting to stay up at the end of the season.
Losing Carlos Tevez, since returned to his boyhood club of Boca Juniors in Argentina, and Arturo Vidal, who transferred to Bayern Munich, after winning the Copa America with Chile, created huge holes. But he has put those to rest so far as he has proved to be Juve’s most unsafe scorer in the Champions League.
Destro has yet to get on the scoresheet this season thanks in part to Bologna’s struggles to create a consistent attacking threat, but he has generally played well. He has scored two goals this season and has been Bologna’s best offensive player.
There’s little doubt Pirlo had slowed a few, which may be akin to putting molasses in the freezer, but Juve’s offense still involved funneling the ball to the bearded master with him splitting open defenses from deep, playing it into his feet when the club needed to slow the tempo, with Vidal, Paul Pogba and others providing the legs for his precision and vision. They are giving up goals early and at the most unfortunate times. The Swiss defender was subbed off a couple of games ago due to breathing problems and now he has undergone surgery to fix a heart condition.
One of the positive things for the home side is Sami Khedira’s return to fitness.
What a debut! A fantastic week for the midfielder who followed up his midweek display with an assist and a goal on his first Serie A start of the season.
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The striker said: “We need to continue working hard because we can’t keep conceding from our opponents’ first attempt on goal”.
