Juventus 2-0 Lazio: Match review as Ronaldo fails to score on his home debut
Final scoreline: Juventus 2-0 Lazio
Goals: Miralem Pjanic (30 min) and Mario Mandzukic (75 min)
After last week's thrilling encounter against Chievo, Juventus made light work of Lazio by dispatching the Rome based side with a convincing scoreline of 2-0, thanks to goals from Miralem Pjanic and Mario Mandzukic. The Italian champions have now moved on to the top of Serie A standings as of now.
Both the teams started off rather unconvincingly though, as there were many misplaced passes and no team was able to hold possession for a considerable period of time. At one such instance, Miralem Pjanic went wrong with his passing at the 11th minute and Szczesny had to make the save to keep the scores level.
Juventus came close to opening the scoring when a long ball from Chiellini at the 19th minute resulted in Sami Khedira hitting the crossbar after Ronaldo failed to connect to the loose ball. The ball then fell to Bernardeschi, who picked it up on the right flank to cut in and he fired towards the target with his left foot, only to be denied by the Lazio goalkeeper Strakosha.
The game suddenly came to life when at the half-hour mark, Miralem Pjanic found himself at the edge of Lazio's box after Bernardeschi's timid cross was headed away to the edge of the area. The Juve midfielder drilled home the half volley, which nestled into the bottom right-hand corner to give Juve the advantage going into the half-time.
Lazio kicked off the 2nd half but the Italian side was finding it hard to keep the ball and generate enough goal-scoring chances. While on the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo started to look a little more threatening when he released a low cross into the box after doing a couple of stepovers. Ronaldo again tested the Lazio defence when he unleashed a sharply dipping shot after cutting inside, which was parried away by the goalkeeper Strakosha.
The game was eventually killed off when a teasing low cross from the right-back Juan Cancelo was deflected into the path of Ronaldo by Strakosha, but the Portuguese talisman was unable to sort his legs out and the ball ricocheted into the path of the onrushing Mario Mandzukic, who made no mistake in converting from close range to double the old lady's advantage.
Juventus ultimately saw the game off with little challenge from there on and registered their 2nd win on the bounce in this season Serie A. Lazio, on the other hand, suffered their 2nd consecutive defeat in this season following the opening day loss to Napoli at home, and are currently languishing at 20th position in the Serie A standings.