Juventus responded to the elimination in the Champions League with a victory in Serie A on Sunday. Five days after the disappointing evening against FC Porto, the team of trainer Andrea Pirlo was 1-3 too strong for Cagliari. All goals were scored by Cristiano Ronaldo, who was accurate with left, right and head. Juventus, which did not have Paulo Dybala, Merih Demiral, Aaron Ramsey, Gianluigi Buffon and Rodrigo Bentancur at its disposal, started for the first time with Federico Chiesa, Dejan Kulusevski, Ronaldo and Álvaro Morata in the base. Matthijs de Ligt was on the field for ninety minutes.
Cagliari had seven points from the last three matches, but the island club quickly lost a game against Juventus. After less than ten minutes, Cagliari faced a backlog. After a corner kick from Juan Cuadrado, Ronaldo powerfully headed in his first of the evening: 0-1. Not much later, the Portuguese received a yellow card for dangerous play towards Alessio Cragno, who was left with a cut on his chin.
?????????????? ???????????????? ?? The Portuguese top scorer towers above everyone and heads hard! ?? Juventus ahead of Cagliari #ZiggoSport #SerieA #CagliariJuventus pic.twitter.com/HAucAgC9ob
– Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) March 14, 2021
Cragno was at the base of the 0-2 after 25 minutes when he fouled Ronaldo and referee Gianpaolo Calvarese pointed to the spot. The goalkeeper was unable to reverse the eleven-meter kick. After just over half an hour of play, the 0-3 appeared on the scoreboard and Ronaldo was once again the scorer. He received the ball from Federico Chiesa, got rid of Daniele Rugani and shot high. The halftime score could have been much higher, but Morata and Kulusevski missed some opportunities.
More goals from Ronaldo or Juventus failed to materialize after the break. Pirlo’s team leaned on the generous lead and faced a stronger Cagliari, who first put Wojciech Szczesny to work and then put the 1-3 on the scoreboard via Giovanni Simeone after an hour of play. That was it, because partly due to the changes on both sides, the pace of the game fell and with it the chances. Juventus is now at 55 points and that is 10 less than leader Internazionale, which has played one more match.