Juventus Turin returned to victory after two weeks of waiting against Udinese (2-0) on Saturday during the 11th day of the Italian Championship, marked by the laborious victory of AC Milan in Monza (1- 0).
Three days after their draw at home (2-2) against promoted Parma, Juve had to react. With her Turkish prodigy Kenan Yildiz back in the starting lineup, she wasted no time.
She opened the scoring in the 19th minute thanks to her French recruit Khéphren Thuram: even if he was not credited with his first goal in Serie A, the attacking midfielder outpaced the Udinese defense and saw his shot bounce off the post before bouncing off the back of Udinese goalkeeper Maduka Okoye.
Thiago Motta's team doubled the lead with a long shot from Nicolo Savona (37th).
Thanks to this fifth victory in Serie A, Juve, who are still undefeated in the championship, moved from 7th to 3rd place (21 points) to come back to the level of Inter Milan (2nd, 21 pts) who face Venice (18th) Sunday.
Naples, which hosts Atalanta Bergamo (4th) on Sunday, is leader with four points ahead of the Inter-Juve duo.
“We played well for 95 minutes, we still missed a few things in the first half, but it was a good match and a very important victory for us,” Motta analyzed.
– Milan left behind –
Juve indeed experienced a delicate period in October with two draws in the league, conceding no less than six goals (4-4 against Inter at San Siro, 2-2 against Parma at home), and a defeat, its alone in all competitions, in the Champions League (1-0 against Stuttgart at the Allianz Stadium).
Tuesday, she goes to Lille which has just beaten Real Madrid (1-0) and Atletico in its stadium (3-1) in the Champions League.
Real will be the next opponent of AC Milan who did not at all, in Monza, reassure their supporters devastated by the rout of their team at San Siro against Naples (2-0) in the middle of the week.
Paulo Fonseca's players were dominated in the first period and can thank Mike Maignan, decisive on a long shot from Daniel Maldini (25th) and a point-blank header from Pedro Pereira (28th).
Against the run of play, AC Milan scored the only goal of the match on a counter launched by Christian Pulisic and finished with a header by Tijjani Reijnders (43rd).
Milan is 7th and already behind in the title race: it is eight points behind leader Naples and four less than Inter.
For its part, Bologna, Monaco's opponent on Tuesday in C1, scored two victories for the first time, against Lecce (1-0), thanks to a goal from its Italian international Riccardo Orsolini in the 85th minute.
The Rossoblu temporarily returned to 9th place in Serie A with fifteen points, but played one match less, like AC Milan.
jr/goes
