Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Fiorentina

Hello, friends. It’s midweek Serie A football for the first time this season. The schedule has officially gotten busy — and it’s not like it’s going to slow down for the next couple of weeks with the Champions League group stage getting underway as well.

The first international break of the season is most certainly a thing of the past now, meaning we’re right in the heart of the late-September/early-October schedule crunch. The games are here one day, gone another and then we pretty much repeat that cycle about every 72 hours or so.

The next turn of the magical wheel of scheduling has Fiorentina coming to Turin for the first midweek Serie A fixture of the season as Juventus puts its perfect league start on the line. Just a couple of old rivals facing each other for the first time this season. I don’t know about ounds like a nice relaxing Wednesday night at Allianz Stadium, right?

A rivalry is going to be renewed in just a matter of minutes.

And not just is there going to be a rivalry, but we also get to see these things potentially take place as well:

• Can Juventus build off their 3-1 win over Sassuolo on Sunday afternoon?
• Paulo Dybala continuing his insane start to the 2017-18 season, one where he has scored eight goals in Juve’s first four league games.
• Gonzalo Higuain trying to kick-start his season.
• What kind of squad rotation will happen because it’s pretty much a certainty that there will be some kind of squad rotation all of three days after the last Juve game.
• Federico Bernardeschi playing against his former team ... maybe.

It’s almost showtime at J Stadium once again. It’s been a little bit of time since we’ve seen our still-relatively knew friend. But we’re happy to be back, as always.

SOON. VERY, VERY SOON. (And let’s hope it involves another Paulo Dybala goal or two.)

MATCH INFO

Location: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy

Kick-off time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Spain; 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; Sturaro, Barzagli, Rugani, Asamoah; Bentancur, Matuidi; Cuadrado, Dybala, Mandzukic; Higuain

Juventus bench: Buffon, Pinsoglio, Benatia, Chiellini, Alex Sandro, Lichtsteiner, Douglas Costa, Pjanic, Caligara, Bernardeschi

Fiorentina starting XI (4-2-3-1): Sportiello; Laurini, Pezzella, Astori, Biraghi; Veretout, Badelj; Benassi, Thereau, Chiesa; Simeone

Fiorentina bench: Dragowski, Milenkovic, Bruno Gaspar, Vitor Hugo, Cristoforo, Maxi Olivera, Eysseric, Sanchez, Zekhnini, Saponara, Gil Dias, Babacar

WATCH IT

TV: BT Sport 3 (United Kingdom); PremiumSport HD, Sky Calcio 1, Sky Sport 1 HD Italia (Italy)

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

Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven't already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.

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