Juventus vs Fiorentina: Serie A 2021-2022

Fiorentina traveled to Turin for the always tense contest with Juventus with the added narrative of Dušan Vlahović’s transfer saga and without star winger Nicolás González. The Bianconeri, though, were far from their usual dominant selves, and were in fact lower in the table than their visitors, which was an odd inversion of the usual relationship.

The positions in the standings seemed to be reflected in the gameplay, too, as the Viola dominated possession and kept the ball ticking around the hosts’ area without offering any real penetration, while the bad guys tried to hit exclusively through Paulo Dybala and Federico Chiesa on the break. At the half, it was a pretty clunky, scoreless affair, with the only real point of interest being whether Matthijs de Ligt would ever get booked for assaulting Vlahović (spoiler: he wouldn’t).

The second half was much like the first, at least until Nikola Milenković lost his head and got booked twice in 8 minutes for fouls well up the pitch. Vincenzo Italiano tried to close up shop by bringing on all his defenders and nearly made it work, as Juve never looked like unlocking the very deep block, until Juan Cuadrado got loose down the right in stoppage time and fired home via a slight deflection from a very tight angle.

It was a real punch in the crotch, as these games against the Juvenuts usually are, but we’ve got all our coverage collected right here if you’re into that sort of thing.