Juventus did good business on Wednesday evening in the battle for a Champions League ticket. The team of trainer Andrea Pirlo, the current number five, won 1-3 against Sassuolo, as a result of which number four has approached Napoli to a point. Champion Internazionale managed to win at home against AS Roma (2-1), while AC Milan lashed out hard at Torino (0-7). It is the Milanese biggest away win in competition since 1955.
Sassuolo – Juventus 1-3
It was the night of the departing Gianluigi Buffon and record breaker Cristiano Ronaldo. The 43-year-old goalkeeper defused a penalty kick from Domenico Berardi in the sixteenth minute. At 43 years and 104 days, Buffon is the oldest goalkeeper ever in Serie A to stop a penalty. Juventus then took over and Adrien Rabiot opened the score after almost half an hour of play. The French midfielder saw a shot from just outside the box end up in the goal via the post. Shortly before half time it was the turn of Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored his 100th goal for Juventus. He is the first player of the club to do that in three seasons. In addition, Ronaldo is the first player to score a hundred hits for three different clubs and Portugal.
0-2 just before half time: Ronaldo can simply finish ??#ZiggoSport #SerieA #SassuoloJuve pic.twitter.com/h0hjjRrirC
– Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) May 12, 2021
Giacomo Raspadori brought the tension back after an hour of play with a controlled slider on behalf of Sassuolo. Juventus, however, was not fooled by the connection goal. Halfway through the second half, Paulo Dybala, like Ronaldo, signed for goal number one hundred in his career at Juventus. La Vecchia Signora then held up fairly easily and with two duels to go, remains fully in the race for a ticket for the group stage of the Champions League.
Torino – AC Milan 0-7
Without the absent Zlatan Ibrahimovic, AC Milan had no mercy whatsoever with poor Torino. The visitors laid the foundation for the victory in the first half, with a beautiful goal from defender Theo Hernández in the nineteenth minute. His bang really flew into the top corner. Franck Kessié doubled the lead after 26 minutes from eleven meters, after Ante Rebic was knocked down in the penalty area. After the break, there was no stopping it at all for Torino. Brahim Díaz signed for the 0-3 after good preparatory work by Kessié. Hernández, who came along with him, took care of the fourth goal after an hour of play with a nice lob. The outstanding Rebic also took a hit after a smooth counter from Milan. The same Rebic even lifted the score to 0-6 in minute 72 and ten minutes before the end, the wing attacker completed his hat-trick: 0-7.
Ante Rebic was the hero of AC Milan with a hat-trick.
Internazionale – AS Roma 3-1
Inter gave the national title extra cachet by also tying AS Roma to the winner. Stefan de Vrij stayed on the couch at the home club for the entire match. The visitors still started strong, but after eleven minutes, a goal by Marcelo Brozovic led to a 1-0 deficit. In the penalty area he finished calmly for Inter. After twenty minutes the scoreboard showed 2-0. Matias Vecino hit the mark after good preparatory work by the sharp Romelu Lukaku. Henrikh Mkhitaryan then narrowed the margin with a nice curl in the far corner. Roma, with Rick Karsdorp in the ranks, however, was not given to avoid a defeat at Giuseppe Meazza, despite a ball hit the post by Edin Dzeko after an hour. In the final minute, Lukaku was tailor-made by Achraf Hakimi and the Belgian top scorer simply hit for an open goal.
The players of Internazionale wore separate shirts on Wednesday evening.
Atalanta – Benevento 2-0
The team of trainer Gian Piero Gasperini, who started Marten de Roon and Hans Hateboer and sentenced Sam Lammers to the reserve bench until the 89th minute, never ran into problems at home. The score was opened halfway through the first half by Luis Muriel. The striker got the ball back in the sixteen after a self-created combination with Ruslan Malinovskyi and then pushed in the 1-0 coolly. Although Benevento never became dangerous for a moment, the tension only dropped out of the game more than twenty minutes before the end. Thanks to a switch from Aleksey Miranchuk, Duván Zapata reached Mario Pasalic, who had the corner to choose from close and convincingly finished: 2-0. In the end Benevento ended the game with ten men, as Luca Caldirola received his second yellow card of the game from referee Davide Massa a few minutes before the end.
Lazio – Parma 1-0
The Romans opened with great aggression against the already degraded Parma. In the first half, Lazio came through Ciro Immobile (header, shot) and Luis Alberto (shot on the crossbar) several times, but the ball did not land. In the second act, the visitors got more color on their cheeks and they cornered Lazio a number of times. Juan Brunetta came closest to a hit. The attacking midfielder tried his luck with a shot from a distance, but his attempt ended up in the hands of goalkeeper Luigi Sepe via the post. In the end, Lazio only managed to take the game deep into injury time. It was Immobile who made the only goal of the game from the rebound: 1-0.