Roma traveled to face Juventus on the 33rd round of Serie A after their first encounter of the season ended in 1-1 draw, The Giallorossi went to the Juventus stadium with an awful away record as they only won one game in their last seven fixtures, while their opponents were on a five games winning streak and unbeaten in all competitions this season.
The game started with complete domination from Juventus showing their fans some beautiful football and it did not take so long to see the first goal after some work of art of passing between Mirko Vucinic and Paolo De Ceglie, the later made the assist for Arturo Vidal who’s left foot found the net on the fourth minute. Just four minutes later King Arthur came with another stunning goal after an assist from Vucinic, and Vidal was only the second player in this campaign to score a brace in less than ten minutes.
After the second goal La Magica tried to return to the game, holding the ball and controlling through their wide passing all over the field that came with no benefit as in the 25th minute Mirko Vucinic came with yet another wonder pass to Claudio Marchisio who was poorly tackled by Martin Stekelenburg awarding Juventus their second penalty of the season and the second red card for the Dutch goalkeeper since joining Roma. Gianluca Curci saved Andrea Pirlo’s penalty but 32 year-old made sure he scored a third of the keeper’s deflection.
In the second half La Vecchia Signora were not full yet as Vucinic came with his second assist of the game this time to El Principio Claudio Marchisio who bagged the fourth goal of the game and killed every hope for Roma and the rest of the game was history as Roma suffered their most humiliating loss of the season 4-0 to the unbeaten Juventus.
Lessons to Learn from the Juventus-Roma Clash:
· Recently Paolo De Ceglie has massively improved in his offensive qualities and in his Role as left wing back, the 25 year-old has reached the standard the Juve fans were expecting of him and do no exclude the possibility that such a player would join the Azzurri in the coming Euro. Once again Antonio Conte’s brilliance was shown in changing the liability into an asset, the left back that was left on the bench and had a number of horrible seasons due to injury is finally proceeding and became Juventus’ more powerful weapon of the left flank.
· The silent role of Fabio Quagliarella, the former Napoli striker is beginning to show why he is starting over Alessandro Matri and Marco Borriello as we can see the team chemistry with his teammates, he may not be scoring lately but Fabio’s movement and passing during the game is exactly the kind of play Antonie Conte is wishing Juventus would play.
· Stephan Lichtsteiner’s efforts are nothing compared to the beginning of the season, the Swiss right back has dropped in form especially when playing in a 3-5-2 formation. Antonio Conte could start depending more on Martin Caceres who showed a lot of promise in that position.
· Luis Enrique should not make these amounts of risks in big games like this, Roma’s defense was a complete embarrassment as the Spanish coach used De Rossi who rarely started a center back this season alongside Simone Kjaer the player with the most fatal mistakes for Roma this campaign and on the flanks Juventus found all the space they needed to create chances especially Aleandro Rosi’s. Plus last time Simone Perrotta started a game for Roma was in 2011 starting him and a player with offensive qualities as Marquinho in the center gave Juventus the opportunity to take hold of the game.