Juventus Eases Past Cagliari Ahead of Important Midweek Champions League Match
MILAN — Inter Milan and Napoli are blasting opponents while Juventus seems content to grind out results in Serie A.
Juventus barely stepped out of first gear to beat Cagliari 3-1 on Saturday ahead of its Champions League meeting with Manchester United on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Inter and Napoli both scored five goals in their wins against Genoa and Napoli but they remain six points behind Juventus, which faces Milan next Sunday in a tricky week for the defending Italian champion.
''We struggled to score the second goal and we drifted out of the game a bit,'' Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said. ''We need to improve in defending in our half of the pitch: We think we can always score two or three goals but it's not always like that.''
FAST START
Juventus took just 44 seconds to score. Rodrigo Bentancur threaded the ball to Paulo Dybala, who twisted his way past two defenders before firing into the bottom right corner.
Joao Pedro leveled in the 36th, bringing down a cross from the right and swiveling to drill into the bottom near corner.
However, Juventus was back in front less than two minutes later when Croatia midfielder Filip Bradaric put Douglas Costa's cross into his own net.
It was an eventful first half as each side also had penalty appeals waived away, while Cristiano Ronaldo sent an effort crashing off the left post.
Juan Cuadrado sealed the match three minutes from time with his first goal of the season. Dybala picked out Ronaldo, who ran nearly half the length of the pitch before rolling across for Cuadrado to blast it into the back of the net.
