The Old Lady has broken the deadlock. After winning the first leg of the Coppa semi-final against Lazio, they have now also secured an important three-pointer in Serie A – a 1-0 win against rivals Florence. But it wasn’t pretty in the end
After the important 2-0 win in the Coppa Italia semi-final first leg against Lazio Roma, Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri was once again able to rely on Chiesa and Vlahovic, who had only returned during the week after suffering from inflammation in his spine.
The Serbian was virtually “banned” from celebrating by the VAR on matchday 31 in the clash with rivals Florence, who themselves had won 1-0 in the cup against Atalanta Bergamo. The system, which has been firmly anchored in Serie A since 2017/18, intervened unusually often – more precisely for all four goals scored by Torino in the first 45 minutes
Gatti dusts himself off, celebrates – and can continue to celebrate
Former Schalke player McKennie finished dryly from Gatti’s header, but was clearly too far forward in the 6th minute. The situation was even trickier in the 12th minute: Gatti, who was in the permitted area, nodded the ball powerfully onto the crossbar from close range, from where it bounced back to the lurking Vlahovic. The Serbian slotted in – so everything was fine? Not quite. The VAR intervention revealed that the teammate in front of Vlahovic, who was offside, had touched Bremer slightly
Ciesa then superbly chipped the ball into the penalty area on the right to the rising McKennie, who nodded across to Vlahovic – who scored again against his former club (with Fiorentina between 2018 and 2022), but was stopped again. McKennie, who had provided the assist, was slightly offside.
All somehow unsatisfactory for the record champions, who had only won once in nine Serie A games, controlled the overall rather tough duel with the Viola and really didn’t let anything go wrong defensively? Not quite: the Old Lady scored one goal, making it 1:0 at the break. After Bremer’s header hit the post in the 21st minute, the VAR also intervened, but did not recognize anything in Gatti’s final clearance. The initially interrupted celebrations were resumed
Szczesny deserves thanks
After the restart, the home Bianconeri offered their fans some tough fare, with only Chiesa testing AC goalkeeper Terracciano (49′) before Viola defender Milenkovic almost scored an own goal after a sharp Kostic cross (56′). Otherwise, however, Torino only focused on defending, which made the Tuscans bolder and almost led to a 1:1 draw
But a fine shot from ex-Stuttgart man Gonzalez was only just deflected onto the crossbar by Juve keeper Szczesny, who leapt high (74′). Ten minutes later, the Polish international goalkeeper made another save from joker Beltran to secure an important victory for his side. It was the third consecutive result in Serie A between the Old Lady and Fiorentina, who finally dropped to mid-table with this 1-0 draw. The full focus will now be on the Coppa second leg against Atalanta (April 24) and before that the Conference League quarter-final against Viktoria Pilsen, while Juventus have now put themselves in position for the cup final and Champions League ticket with their two must-win matches
