Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Atalanta

For weeks, if not months, it’s been a constant theme of posts entering Juventus games. Juventus plays, Juventus wins and then we await to see what the Napoli result is. In December, January and February, it was all the same. Juve wins, Napoli wins, and things pretty much go back to where they were entering that round of games.

WELL, WE’RE DONE WITH ALL THAT.

During the course of the first weekend of March, Juventus saw Napoli’s lead atop the Serie A table go from four points to one point.

During the course of the second weekend of March, Juventus saw Napoli’s lead atop the Serie A standings completely disappear, finally leapfrogging i Partenopei for more than just a couple of hours.

In the span of eight days, Juve have seen a four-point deficit in Serie A turn into a one-point lead. You never thought that Roma and Inter would help Juventus out in a major kind of way in back-to-back weekends, but they most certainly did.

Because of it, Juventus is setting the pace atop the Serie A table for the first time since the opening weeks of the season. And, oh yeah, Juve still have that game in hand.

Come Wednesday at Allianz Stadium, the time to play that game in hand will have arrived. There is no snow in the forecast, no reason to worry about the weather. None of that, thankfully. Instead, Juventus will host Atalanta with the chance further extend their newfound lead atop the Serie A table with Napoli not playing until Sunday night.

Let’s just go over how things have gone for Juventus in the league table, okay? They’ve gone from trailing by four points to trailing by one point to leading by one point to, now, potentially going up by four points all within the span of about 10 days.

That’s one hell of a month of March so far.

Juventus has an opportunity to quickly stretch its lead to a much more comfortable four points when nobody else is playing on Wednesday night. (Unless you count something happening between Barcelona and Chelsea in the Champions League as competition.)

MATCH INFO

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Location: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy

Kickoff time: 6 p.m. local time in Italy; 5 p.m. in the United Kingdom; 1 p.m. on the East Coast. 10 a.m. on the West Coast

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (4-2-3-1): Buffon; Lichtsteiner, Benatia, Chiellini, Asamoah; Pjanic, Matuidi; Douglas Costa, Dybala, Mandzukic; Higuain

Juventus bench: Szczesny, Del Favero, De Sciglio, Barzagli, Rugani, Alex Sandro, Khedira, Marchisio, Sturaro, Bentancur

Atalanta starting XI (3-4-1-2): Berisha; Mancini, Toloi, Palomino, Hateboer, De Roon, Haas, Gosens; Cristante; Ilicic, Gomez

Atalanta bench: Gollini, Rossi, Masiello, Cornelius, Freuler, Caldara, Castagne, Melegoni, Petagna, Spinazzola, Barrow

HOW TO WATCH

Television: beIN SPORTS USA (second half only due to Ligue 1 coverage), beIN SPORTS en Español (United States); beIN SPORTS en Español (Canada); BT Sport ESPN (United Kingdom); Sky Calcio 1, Sky Sport 1 HD Italia, PremiumSport 2 HD, Sky Supercalcio HD (Italy)

Online/Mobile: fuboTV (second half only due to Ligue 1 coverage), beIN SPORTS CONNECT U.S.A., iGol (United States); beIN SPORTS CONNECT Canada, DAZN Canada (Canada); BT Sport Live (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.

And don’t forget to like our page on Facebook, either!