Cagliari supporters in the Olimpico made this banner that fittingly read, 'I have more points on my driver's license than Juventus in the championship'. No truer words have ever been spoken. However with this 1-0 win at home to Cagliari, Juventus move into fifth place with Sampdoria, pre-Genoese derby, three behind Palermo at 54 points. Of course, the big news this weekend is Roma's move atop the standings making next week's game for Juventus against Inter that much more perilous for the Nerazzurri. Fun fun.
First off, regretably neither Alessio nor I could manage a preview ahead of this one for various reasons. Alessio was performing open heart surgery on his pet gerbil, and I was overcoming a rather large hangover after partying with some third-year law school friends of mine at Western University. If you've ever heard of Western, then you'd understand where I'm coming from. Thankfully though, the gerbil's surgery was a huge success and she'll be making a full recovering in a few weeks.
Speaking of success, Juventus finally held on to a lead, and a rather slim one at that. Zaccheroni attributed this victory, while ending his silence after 90 minutes, to the improved fitness levels:
"No team can play without decent fitness levels. Now we can train and it shows, as it's no coincidence we didn't collapse in the second half. For a long time we had to send out players who were in precarious conditions. The many injuries were not decisive, but they did force us to always field the same men, even when they were in no condition to do so."
Talk about no condition to do so, Alberto should've been advised not to sound too confident about our chances going forward, fully fit or not. This team still looks very disjointed tactically most of the time. Moving on.
Giorgio Chiellini is the world's greatest center back at the moment. No question. That tells me there's a good chance of us properly restructuring our defense relatively quickly with a few additions next season. Absent of the dimwitted forces at play of course. Great effort from the future captain of Juventus, and the Azzurri today. So far in 27 appearances this season in Serie A, Chiellini has four goals to Amauri's five. Should we give Amauri the assist on Chiellini's header today though? You be the judge. Ariaudo I see you boy.
IERI... DOMANI... SEMPRE JUVE!!!