12 January 2017
The numbers
Wednesday’s win over Atalanta was the 11th time in as many seasons that Juventus have reached the Coppa Italia quarter-finals, while for the Nerazzurri this was a fifth successive elimination at the round of 16, but they made life far from easy for Massimiliano Allegri’s men on the night.
The Bergamo-based outfit became the first visiting team to score two goals at Juventus Stadium since Bayern Munich last February, their spirited second-half fightback coming close to forcing extra-time and potentially penalties.
Goals aside, there were plenty more statistics backing up the notion that this really was one of the most closely competed contests to have taken place at Juventus Stadium in recent times.
The Bianconeri just edged possession (50.5 per cent), shots within the box (9 compared to Atalanta’s 7) passes (510 to Atalanta’s 500) and overall pass completion (86.1 to 84.8 per cent).
The Nerazzurri matched their hosts in terms of tackles (14) and percentage of aerial duels won (50 per cent) and even posted better figures for efforts on target (6 to Juve’s 3) and pass completion in the opposition half (80.5 to 79.5 per cent).
The names
Paulo Dybala followed up on Sunday’s strike against Bologna with a wonderfully struck left-footed half volley that flew into the bottom corner to put his team in front on 22 minutes.
This was La Joya’s sixth goal in 17 appearances this term and he took his assist tally to four in all competitions by setting up Mario Mandzukic to make it 2-0 before half-time.
Super Mario’s was a fine finish too, bending around Etrit Berisha and into the net, which put the Croatian level with Dybala on six strikes for the season so far.
Mandzukic, whose knockdown it was for Paulo to hammer home the game’s opener, also ended up with an assist for the evening. This was the second time of the campaign he had managed to score and set up a team-mate in the same outing, doing so against Pescara in November.
Last but certainly not least, Miralem Pjanic’s cool penalty on 75 minutes brought the Bosnian’s tally to seven goals for the season which, combined with his nine assists so far in a Juventus shirt, make for impressive reading indeed.
Miralem has now provided a key contribution (either goal or assist) in seven of his last eight matches.
