Juventus Humbled at Home by Fiorentina
Juventus suffered their first Serie A loss of the season as they were beaten 3-0 at home by Fiorentina. Juve’s ex-Chelsea midfielder Juan Cuadrado was sent off for a lunge on Gaetano Castrovilli 18 minutes into the game to reduce the Italian champions to 10 men .
Fiorentina were already ahead by that stage after Dusan Vlahovic lifted a composed finish over Wojciech Szczesny. Former Manchester United and Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo had a header chalked off for offside for Juventus before an Alex Sandro own goal and a Martin Caceres effort sealed a famous victory.
It was very frustrating night for Juventus who had already lost three points and dropped to fourth in Serie A table. They are now seven points off the top, after their walkover victory over Napoli in October was rescinded.
It was announced on Tuesday that Napoli had won their appeal against the decision to deduct them a point and award hosts Juventus the game when the visitors failed to travel because of positive Covid-19 tests.
The champions’ day quickly went from bad to worse as former Bayern Munich forward Franck Ribery’s through ball carved open their defence to allow Vlahovic to race clear and dink home just three minutes in.
Cuadrado was then sent off on his 200th Juventus appearance, the referee consulting his pitchside monitor and upgrading an initial yellow to a red for the Colombian’s reckless high tackle on Castrovilli.
Cristiano Ronaldo went close to equalising several times, firing just wide and then forcing a good save from Bartlomiej Dragowski, before also being denied by the assistant referee.
However, two Cristiano Biraghi crosses led to the result being confirmed – the first turned into his own net by Sandro on 76 minutes and the second tucked home from close range five minutes later by former Juve right-back Caceres, as Fiorentina ended an eight-game run without a win.
Juventus manager Andre Pirlo however said the lose will not affect his team’s spirit and it is one of those things that happens in the game football. It was their first defeat of the season and it came very bad as it was in their home ground.
