Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Roma

When Juventus beat Inter Milan at Allianz Stadium this past March, we knew that it was one of their best performances of the season. The problem was, we didn’t know when that next game would be because the thing that caused the stadium to be completely empty and without fans, the novel coronavirus, was about to cause Serie A (an the rest of Europe) to be put on hold not many hours later.

We haven’t had to wait nearly as long to see if Juventus can replicate another really good performance at Allianz Stadium this time around.

Seven days is it. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s perfectly acceptable, right?

Even then, the way that Juventus played last Sunday night has caused more than just a few folks to be a little antsy while waiting for the next time Andrea Pirlo to fill out a starting lineup and walk out of the tunnel with his hair all styled and his suit looking sharp. Seven days after that impressive win over Sampdoria to begin the new era in Turin, Juventus takes the field once more tonight, this time have made the trip over to the Italian capital to face Roma at the Stadio Olimpico, the first of two big early-season tests for Pirlo’s crew.

It’s the first of two very big games before the first international break of the season arrives.

And during this big stretch to open the season, we’re going to learn a lot about what Pirlo’s Juventus is all about.

The first week surpassed a lot of people’s expectations. Maybe that’s because we really had nothing much to build any kind of expectations to begin with, so the bar was either somewhat low or not there at all. You know, a TBD kind of situation where you wanted to see Juve play somebody other than a Serie C side before shaping some sort of first impression when it came to what Pirlo as Juventus manager is all about.

Hopefully this Sunday ends up being a lot like last Sunday.

Because you know if Juve do what they did last Sunday this time around against Napoli, then the hype going into the first time Pirlo has faced his buddy Rino Gattuso as a manager will be off the freakin’ charts when Juve play Napoli next weekend.

(In case you haven’t looked, go ahead and check out that Napoli-Genoa score.)

MATCH INFO

When: Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020

Where: Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy

Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy and across Europe; 7:45 p.m. in the United Kingdom; 2:45 p.m. Eastern Time; 11:45 a.m. Pacific Time

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (3-4-1-2): Szczesny; Danilo, Bonucci, Chiellini; Cuadrado, Rabiot, McKennie, Ramsey; Kulusevski; Morata, Ronaldo

Juventus bench: Buffon, Pinsoglio, De Sciglio, Rugani, Demiral, Frabotta, Arthur, Bentancur, Portanova, Dybala, Douglas Costa, Vrioni

Roma starting XI (3-4-2-1): Mirante; Mancini, Ibanez, Kumbulla; Santon, Veretout, Pellegrini, Spinazzola; Mkhitaryan, Pedro; Dzeko

HOW TO WATCH

Television: RAI Italia North America (United States); RAI Italia North America, TLN (Canada); Premier Sports 1 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport Serie A (Italy)

Online/mobile: ESPN+ (United States); DAZN (Canada); Premier Player HD (United Kingdom); SKY Go Italia (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.