A rivalry that is more than a century old, the battle of Turin, the Derby della Mole was played this past Saturday and it was a match worthy of the hype. Juventus started the game off strong early with a goal from Argentinian forward Paulo Dybala a little more than 2 minutes into the match. It stayed fairly quiet until the 25th minute when Leonardo Bonucci was booked with a yellow card. Not long after Juan Cuadrado scored a phenomenal breakaway goal in the 28th minute. Ronaldo was on the ball in the center of the field right outside the box, lays the ball off Cuadrado on his right, Cuadrado then made a quick move to his right and smashes a low shot into the opposite corner of the goal to make it 2-0. You can’t write Torino off though, with seconds left to spare in the 1st half the ref goes to VAR to check a potential handball on CB Mattis De Ligt. Unfortunately for Juventus De Ligt gets a yellow card for the handball and concedes a penalty to end the half. Torino’s Andrea Belotti capitalized on the opportunity with a calm and decisive strike to make the match 2-1 to end the half.
Coming off of a very strong first half for both of the respective sides the 2nd half turned out to be more one sided. In the 60th minute Torino’s Ola Aina received a yellow card and gave up what turned out to be a historic and game finishing Cristiano Ronaldo free kick. It was about 25 yards from the goal and CR7 stepped up and scored a beautiful top corner FK to essentially seal the win for his side. The more noteworthy aspect of this FK was that it made Ronaldo the 1st player since Omar Sivori in 1961 to score 25 goals in a season for Juventus. It also was the first direct FK goal he ever scored while at Juve. The only thing worth noting after that was Dybala receiving a yellow card for simulation in the 70th minute. The last thing of note for this match was that legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon broke the record for most Serie A games played in a career surpassing fellow Italian icon Paulo Maldini.
A resounding 3-1 victory for Juventus in the end, and there are so many more exciting matches left to watch this season. Stay tuned next week for another match of the week.
