Serie A heats up as Juventus settle for 1-1 draw with Inter Milan
Juventus commanded the first half of the most recent Derby d'Italia fixture, but allowed Inter Milan back into the match as the match ended 1-1. Within the first five minutes of the match, Arturo Vidal created an opening with deft heelwork and passed to Carlos Tevez who slotted the first goal in.
The Turin club enjoyed the majority of the chances – Vidal was denied narrowly twice in the first half, while Paul Pogba came close in the 35th minute. Andrea Pirlo’s curling free-kick called the Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic into action yet again in the 69th minute.
Inter’s attacks grew in stature as the second half wore on, and got the equalizer in the 64th minute with their first shot on target of the entire match. The Juventus defence was laid bare after a brisk counter-attack, and Mauro Icardi outpaced his marker and beat Gianluigi Buffon from a tight angle.
Inter Milan had the best chance of winning the match when substitute Lukas Podolski found himself in space and squared to Mauro Icardi who failed to score a second goal and grant a famous victory to the Milan club.
Juventus played the last five minutes of the match with a numerical advantage after Mateo Kovacic was sent off, but failed to regain the lead.
Having had to settle for the solitary point, Juventus’s lead over AS Roma at the top of the Serie A table is cut down to one point. Inter Milan stay at 11th spot, but are only within 3 points of 7th placed AC Milan.
Juventus have an attitude problem: Buffon
The draw was the fourth stalemate in the last five games in all competitions for the Old Lady, and veteran goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon feels that there is a problem of attitude at Juventus.
“In my view the same thing happened in other games, which is that we go from great confidence/arrogance of being the best team with excellent potential to seeming fearful at the first sign of difficulty.
“There are moments during the game when Juventus are absolutely dominant and create a huge number of scoring opportunities, but must remember that if it’s 1-0 then we need to keep our eyes open.
“I saw this long ball and thought I could get there in time to block. If I had stayed in the goal he would’ve gone for power rather than accuracy and it would’ve been tougher for him”, said the goalkeeper on the Icardi goal.