Coppa Italia Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Genoa

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another year of the Coppa Italia.

As has become the norm around these parts, Juventus starts their involvement in the competition as the current calendar year reaches its final weeks. That’s how Italy does it, so that’s when Juventus knows its next Coppa Italia adventure will begin.

This year, Juventus jumps into the fray against Genoa. And, as is usually the case for the reigning Coppa Italia champions, they will be doing so in front of their hometown fans. That’s become the norm for Juventus seeing as they’ve won this domestic trophy the last three seasons. That’s not as many consecutive times as they’ve hoisted the Scudetto over their head, but it’s not a bad thing to brag about.

The good thing is that we’ve seen Juventus start to look like the Juventus of old again over the last month or so.

I know, that is weird to say seeing as one of their best players, Paulo Dybala, is in arguably his biggest funk since singing with the six-time defending Italian champions two and a half years ago. But it’s true. Juventus are playing well right now. They’re winning and picking up shutout after shutout.

It’s almost like they’re repaying Max Allegri for all of the times he said in August and September when he preached patience and gave his team time as the so-so performances started to stack up on top of one another.

Now, though, this time may well be starting to hit its stride — which would be nice knowing that the schedule lightens up a bit after the huge game against Roma this weekend at Allianz Stadium in Turin.

So what does Max have to say about all of this?

"The Coppa Italia is an important objective of ours, just like the league. We’ve won the trophy for three years in a row and we want to kick off another successful cup run tomorrow.

"A win on Wednesday would give us a big boost heading into the Roma match on Saturday. These are four crucial days in our season."

A big four-day period not long after a big nine-day period. Just when you think Juventus are going to get a little bit of a break, I guess things just ramp right back up once again.

MATCH INFO

Location: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy

Kickoff 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

STARTLING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-3-3): Szczesny; Lichtsteiner, Barzagli, Rugani, Asamoah; Marchisio, Bentancur, Sturaro; Douglas Costa, Dybala, Bernardeschi

Juventus bench: Pinsoglio, Loria, Chiellini, Benatia, Alex Sandro, Khedira, Matuidi, Pjanic, Pjaca, Higuain

Genoa starting XI (3-4-3): Lamanna; Biraschi, Rossettini, Gentiletti; Lazovic, Omeonga, Cofie, Brlek; Laxalt, Centurion, Galabinov

WATCH IT

TV: GOLTV USA, GOLTV Español (United States); RAI Uno (Italy)

Online/Mobile: fuboTV (United States); RAI Play (Italy)

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