With win over Venezia and Roma’s draw, Juventus qualify for Champions League

The simple math told us that Juventus needed two wins to clinch a spot in next season’s Champions League. Six simple points against two of the worst teams in the league in back-to-back games and that would be that, with Max Allegri’s squad hopefully taking care of business before the showdown with Inter Milan in the Coppa Italia final on May 11.

There was one more way it could be done, though: some help from Roma.

Or maybe to be a little more clear: Roma, one of the most in-form teams in Serie A over the last couple of months up until recently, dropping points against a mid-table Bologna side.

And what do you know? Our old buddy Jose Mourinho and Roma came through.

Juventus didn’t have to rely on another win and three more points this coming Friday against Genoa to ensure that they finished in the top four this season. When you combine Juve’s 2-1 win over Venezia during the Sunday lunchtime fixture and Roma’s scoreless draw with Bologna later that night, the math has come out to where the Bianconeri are now assured of finishing in the top four with three more games remaining. The gap between Juventus in fourth and Roma in fifth stands at 10 points following Sunday’s results, as Juve’s win over Venezia put them on 69 (nice) points, which would see Allegri earn the same amount of points (78) as Andrea Pirlo did in his lone season in Turin if the Bianconeri were to win out this season.

Except this time around, Juve got there in 35 games. As we all know, Juventus needed some help from Napoli (and Hellas Verona) on the final day of the 2020-21 season to finish with 69 points and secure a fourth-place finish.

The early — and positive — development means that Allegri can now set things up a little better for the Coppa Italia final and potentially rest some of his most important players. Of course, the current injury situation may hinder some of that desire, but the fact that finishing top four has been the goal for months now and they’ve officially locked in a Champions League spot, the opportunity to come out of this season with a trophy should now be front and center.

That’s something that Allegri has been saying for weeks now, and especially recently with the Coppa Italia final spot secured after the second leg against Fiorentina. It was top four first, then Coppa Italia comes after that. One down, now it’s onto the next one.