Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at
Juventus took a shocking defeat on Tuesday in the home game against Fiorentina. The reigning Serie A champion fell behind early and was sent a red card shortly after, when Juan Cuadrado was ejected. Against ten men, Fiorentina built the score to 0-3, the biggest home defeat since the 1-4 loss against Parma on January 6, 2011. It was also the first loss of the season for Juventus, which after reversing the regulatory 3- 0 win over Napoli, earlier in the day, fourth is seven points behind leader AC Milan. To make matters worse, Matthijs de Ligt also dropped out injured in the final phase.
Juventus could rightly speak of an absolute horror start. After sixteen minutes, the balance was terrible: a 0-1 deficit and one man less. In the third minute, Franck Ribéry picked up the ball in midfield, before sending Dusan Vlahovic into the depth with a razor-sharp pass between Matthijs de Ligt and Leonardo Bonucci. De Ligt could no longer keep up with Vlahovic and the striker skilfully skipped the ball over Wojciech Szczesny. The red card came after a charge by Cuadrado to the lower leg of Gaetano Castrovilli, after he played the ball too far ahead and tried to repair the damage.
Referee Federico La Penna initially awarded yellow, but viewed the images on the advice of the video referee and only needed a few seconds to proceed to a red print. Andrea Pirlo immediately intervened with a defensive substitution, by taking midfielder Aaron Ramsey to the side and bringing Danilo within the lines. Ramsey did not look happy with his change and kicked a water bottle from the sidelines. Juventus was then lucky that it did not become 0-2 after 25 minutes, because after Bonucci’s sloppy ball loss, Szczesny narrowly parried a bet by Castrovilli with his foot.
Although Juventus played with one man less, there were opportunities for the equalizer, especially through Ronaldo. The star player shot once in the side net and bumped into goalkeeper Bartlomiej Dragowski with a hard long shot. Eleven minutes after the break, Ronaldo got a header from a diving dive, but he was offside when Danilo sent the cross and the goal was therefore canceled. In the remainder of the second half, Juventus was powerless and Fiorentina was able to expand the lead. Alex Sandro worked the ball behind his own goalkeeper on a cross from Cristiano Biraghi, who in turn had been served by Sofyan Amrabat, and Martín Cáceres worked close to 0-3 against his old club. Again, loss of possession of the pitifully poorly playing Bonucci preceded.