Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Sassuolo

Goodbye, international break. Hello, Juventus, you wonderful friend of ours that we’ve been sitting here waiting to return ever since the transfer window ended.

Yes, football is back. No, seriously, it is.

Shortly, Juventus will be back on its home field in front of another sold out and facing one of the clubs that has given them plenty of trouble over the last couple of years in Sassuolo. We can talk about last October or meetings in years prior, but we don’t exactly want to dwell on the past. Not with how things have started this season.

Instead, we await to see how Juventus comes out of this first international break of the current season. Max Allegri and his squad of merry men have been perfect so far. Well, at least when it comes to picking up results.

Let this be the day where the Paulo Dybala-Gonzalo Higuain partnership up front makes the most of what we think it can. May this be the day where Miralem Pjanic shows the rest of Europe why they should have paid Roma a relatively simple and affordable transfer fee this summer to acquire the Bosnian maestro. And may this be the day where Juve pick up where they left off and continue their early-season winning ways.

Considering what’s on the horizon, a Champions League opener and the Derby d’Italia against Inter, keeping the momentum going from late-August to early-September just seems like best-case scenario. For us Juventus-favoring folks out there, maybe not everybody else.

For two weeks we waited for Juventus and Serie A to come back into our lives. Now that day is here. And hopefully, Juve can do as they did last year and do just like they did when the international break began. This time, you know, continue to win instead of frustrating us all to living hell.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus XI (3-5-2): Gianluigi Buffon; Medhi Benatia, Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini; Stephan Lichtsteiner, Sami Khedira, Miralem Pjanic, Mario Lemina, Alex Sandro; Paulo Dybala, Gonzalo Higuain

Juventus bench: Neto, Emil Audero, Dani Alves, Andrea Barzagli, Daniele Rugani, Patrice Evra, Hernanes, Kwadwo Asamoah, Juan Cuadrado, Marko Pjaca, Mario Mandzukic

Sassuolo XI (4-3-3): Andrea Consigli; Marcello Gazzola, Luca Antei, Francesco Acerbi, Federico Peluso; Lorenzo Pellegrini, Francesco Magnanelli, Alfred Duncan; Matteo Politano, Alessandro Matri, Antonio Ragusa

Sassuolo bench: Alberto Pomini, Gianluca Pegolo, Simone Missiroli, Davide Biondini, Pietro Iemmello, Pol Lirola, Luca Mazzitelli, Emanuele Terranova, Federico Ricci, Paolo Cannavaro, Timo Letschert, Claud Adjapong

WATCH IT

TV: beIN SPORTS USA, RAI International (United States); beIN Sports Canada, RAI International (Canada); BT Sport ESPN (United Kingdom); Sky Supercalcio HD (Italy)

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

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