Serie A returned this weekend, with the reigning champions opening the defence of their title at home to Udinese. But it lost three of its star players in the offseason, with Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal and Carlos Tevez leaving.
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The Frenchman was gifted the freedom of Juventus’ penalty area to convert Panagiotis Kone’s right-wing cross, ending a run of 47 home league games without defeat for the Turin club.
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 previous year was that you write Juve off at your own peril.
Juventus dominated proceedings from the opening whistle and created the first chance on goal in the seventh minute when Paul Pogba unleashed a powerful shot from the edge of the box, but the keeper produced a good save to deny him. “But we should have defended better for their goal”.
Inter Milan snatched a 1-0 win over 10-man Atalanta when on-loan Manchester City striker Stevan Jovetic curled a stunning strike into the top right corner in the third minute of stoppage time.
Elsewhere, Sassuolo secured a shock 2-1 triumph at home to Napoli, Chievo defeated Empoli 3-1 away and Sampdoria trounced Serie A newcomers Carpi 5-2.
Palermo claimed a narrow 1-0 victory at home to Genoa thanks to a stoppage-time goal from debutant Abdel El Kaoutari.
The management has done a terrific job so far adding Paulo Dybala, Mario Mandzukic, Sami Khedira and Simone Zaza and I certainly did not expect them to pay €26M for a fullback, although a quality one like Alex Sandro.
Juventus had already picked up its first piece of silverware this season, beating Lazio 2-0 in the Italian Super Cup, and the players paraded the trophy before kickoff. Udinese scored with their first shot on goal, we must have the confidence to score a goal at any time and we must not lose patience. Alvaro Morata has a calf problem, Khedira is out with a thigh injury and Claudio Marchisio is expected to be unavailable for three weeks with a similar issue.
Fiore, now managed by former Basel coach Paulo Sousa, doubled their lead after 56 minutes when Josip Ilicic converted a penalty after Alessio Romagnoli brought down the Slovenia midfielder.
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Milan defender Rodrigo Ely was sent off after 37 minutes for a second bookable offence and Marcos Alonso sent the resulting free kick past Diego Lopez from 30 metres.
