Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Inter Milan

Juventus vs. Inter Milan. Fourth place against third place. It may not be a game that determines who wins the Serie A title this season. But if thee is a team that ends up losing this game, it’s safe to say said team won’t be winning the Scudetto or mounting some sort of surprise late-season push for it.

Oh, and did we already mention that it’s the Derby d’Italia?

This is very much the biggest of big ones for a variety of reasons — the first involving the fact that Juventus can jump ahead of Inter if they are able to beat their arch-rivals from Milano on this night. And with Inter struggling the way they have over the first three months of 2022, it’s very much a possibility, with the Nerazzurri looking far from the squad that was sitting at the top of the table earlier this season.

So now we see if Juve can do it.

The squad is as healthy as it has been in weeks, maybe months. There’s no more injury worries about Dusan Vlahovic after returning a little early from international duty. Paulo Dybala, while obviously dealing with the contract situation finally coming into focus, has had an international break with nothing but training and not traveling halfway around the world. And, the midfield has its big January signing back after missing the last month.

Maybe that means Max Allegri can go with a 4-2-3-1 formation like we’ve been hoping for over much of this season and got a small sample size worth of earlier this season. We’ll find that out when the starting lineups are announced.

But, no matter what, this is the Derby d’Italia. It’s about to be intense as hell. The stadium is going to be rocking and sold out a little over two years to the date after this same derby was played in a closed stadium because of lockdown in Italy.

I wouldn’t mind this game going a lot like that game. But, you know, with much more crowd noise, obviously.

MATCH INFO

When: Sunday, April 3, 2022.

Where: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 8:45 p.m. local time in Italy and around 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 (4-2-3-1): Szczesny; Danilo, de Ligt, Chiellini, Alex Sandro; Locatelli, Rabiot; Cuadrado, Dybala, Morata; Vlahovic.

Juventus bench: Perin, Pinsoglio, De Sciglio, Bonucci, Rugani, Arthur, Bernardeschi, Zakaria, Kean.

Inter Milan starting XI (3-5-2): Handanovic; D’Ambrosio, Skriniar, Bastoni; Dumfries, Barella, Brozovic, Calhanoglu, Perisic; Lautaro Martinez, Dzeko.

Inter Milan bench: Radu, Gagliardini, De Vrij, Sanchez, Vecino, Ranocchia, Gosens, Correa, Vidal, Dimarco, Darmian, Caicedo.

HOW TO WATCH

Television: CBS Sports Network (United States); BT Sport 1 (United Kingdom).

Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); BTSport.com, BT Sport app (United Kingdom); DAZN (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.