Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Chievo

When he takes the field at the Bentegodi this afternoon to man his place in between the sticks, Gianluigi Buffon will be taking part in his 600th career Serie A game. It’s the latest career milestone for a guy who holds so many records, wins so many awards and can pretty much be referred to the ‘G.O.A.T.’ and there wouldn’t be much objection around these parts.

I feel like nobody wants to see Buffon have to witness his team do what they did in his 100th Champions League appearance on Wednesday during his latest Serie A accomplishment.

Juventus vs. Chievo is a game that the five-time defending Italian champions should win. They should win it by a couple of goals considering who will likely be playing and what they are capable of doing. That’s certainly a trend in games against Chievo that Juventus has made pretty well known over the last handful of years.

So, Juventus has had some pretty good success against Chievo, I’d say. Not that you needed my confirmation of that after looking at the tweet from the good folks at Juve’s social media team above. (They also use their emojis a lot better than I probably do, too, so yeah.)

The good success will have to continue if Juve want to get back on track after their latest episode of European struggles earlier in the week. That’s simply a given at this point. It’s not the first time Juventus have struggled against an opponent they are favored against, and it probably won’t be the last. That’s, unfortunately, how Juve do things in this day and age.

The only thing we hope for is that Good Juventus shows its face for the better part of the next couple of hours. If that happens, then I’m thinking Juve is heading back to Turin with three points in their pocket. And a happy Buffon as well. Nobody wants to make Buffon angry when he’s celebrating a massive career milestone like the one he’s got going tonight.

Simple is as simple does, folks.

MATCH INFO

Location: Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi, Verona, Italy

Kick-off time: 3 p.m. local time in Italy; 2 p.m. in England; 9 a.m. on the East Coast; 6 a.m. on the West Coast

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-3-3): Gianluigi Buffon; Stephan Lichtsteiner, Medhi Benatia, Andrea Barzagli, Alex Sandro; Stefano Sturaro, Hernanes, Miralem Pjanic; Juan Cuadrado, Mario Mandzukic, Gonzalo Higuain

Juventus bench: Neto, Emil Audero, Leonardo Bonucci, Daniele Rugani, Dani Alves, Patrice Evra, Claudio Marchisio, Mario Lemina, Sami Khedira, Moise Kean

Chievo starting XI (4-5-1-1): Stefano Sorrentino; Fabrizio Cacciatore, Nicola Spolli, Dario Dainelli, Massimo Gobbi; Mariano Izco, Ivan Radovanovic, Perparim Hetemaj, Lucas Castro; Valter Birsa; Antonio Floro Flores

WATCH IT

TV: beIN SPORTS USA (United States); beIN Sports Canada (Canada); BT Sport 2 (United Kingdom); PremiumSport 2 HD, Sky Calcio 1 (Italy)

Online: beIN SPORTS CONNECT U.S.A., fuboTV (United States); beIN SPORTS CONNECT Canada, fuboTV Canada (Canada); BT Sport Live Streaming (United Kingdom); TIMVision Live Streaming, SKY Go Italia (Italy)

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