Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. SPAL

For as much we talked about Juventus’ last opponent potentially being a team that is fighting off relegation this season, that is even more true this evening. With newly-promoted SPAL coming to town, they’re hoping that they won’t be referred to as “newly-relegated SPAL” come the final weeks of the 2017-18 season.

They’re not exactly off to a good start.

Through their first nine Serie A games, SPAL has collected all of five points. That’s not quite Benevento bad, but it certainly isn’t all that great mainly because they’re still sitting in the relegation zone these days. And who knows when they may be out of the situation they currently find themselves in.

So now, as SPAL comes to Turin for a little midweek football, Juventus aims to extend the newly-promoted sides early-season struggles.

Or, from our point of view on things, we want Juventus to continue in their hopefully not very long quest in getting back atop the Serie A table.

The 6-2 win over Udinese was the first step after a pair of disappointing results against Atalanta and Lazio on each end of the most recent international break. There was rain but there was also plenty of goals to be had. Juve didn’t look great with 11 men on the field, but they look fantastic after Mario Mandzukic was sent off after he picked up two yellow cards in a matter of 10 seconds or so.

Now we get to see if Juventus can actually play well with 11 men on the field once again. That sure would be nice, you know. Seeing somebody get sent off in each game sure would be a complete drag in my book.

And hey, a comfortable win against a relegation battler sure would be nice as compared to the somewhat usual grinders we’ve seen Juve playing out to start this current season of ours.

MATCH INFO

Location: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy

Kick-off time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy; 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom; 2:45 p.m. on the East Coast; 11:45 a.m. on the West Coast

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-2-3-1): Szczesny; Lichtsteiner, Barzagli, Rugani, Alex Sandro; Bentancur, Khedira; Bernardeschi, Dybala, Douglas Costa; Higuain

Juventus bench: Buffon, Pinsoglio, De Sciglio, Chiellini, Asamoah, Marchisio, Pjanic, Cuadrado

SPAL starting XI (3-5-2): Gomis; Oikonomou, Salamon, Felipe; Lazzari, Schiavon, Viviani, Rizzo, Mattiello; Paloschi, Borriello

WATCH IT

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

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

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