27 January 2018
The winning streak reached eight for the Bianconeri on Saturday night as Juventus earned a hard-fought 2-0 win away to nine-man Chievo. Second half goals from Sami Khedira and Gonzalo Higuain sealed three points for the Bianconeri who eventually made their two-man advantage on the field prove decisive.
It was a quiet first half at the Bentegodi with the Bianconeri limited to speculative chances from well outside the area. However, Juventus would gain an advantage on the pitch with Chievo midfielder Samuel Bastien picking up two yellow cards in the span of three minutes leaving his side with ten men heading into half-time.
In the second half, the Gialloblu would be further disadvantaged as Fabrizio Cacciatore was shown a straight red card for dissent in the 61st minute leaving Juventus with a two-man advantage on the pitch.
The Bianconeri would make it count six minutes later as Sami Khedira opened the scoring. Miralem Pjanic sprayed a ball out wide to second half substitute Federico Bernardeschi. He left a ball to the on-rushing Khedira who made no mistake firing a powerful shot past Stefano Sorrentino in the 67th minute to put the Bianconeri on top scoring his fourth Serie A goal of the season.
With a two-man advantage, it was one-way traffic for the rest of the match and Juventus added a second in the 88th minute as Gonzalo Higuain latched onto the end of a Douglas Costa cross heading home to put any Chievo hope to bed. It was Pipita’s first goal in the league since his classic strike in Juve’s win at Napoli in early December.
The three points in Verona push Juventus to the top of the Serie A table two points ahead of Napoli at least for the night as they will face Bologna on Sunday. Up next for Juventus is a trip to Bergamo for the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-finals against Atalanta on Tuesday night at 20.45.
