Italian Serie A preview: Juventus FC – ACF Fiorentina (Part 1)
Fiorentina and Juventus will lock horns in what promises to be an enthralling affair. Both the teams used to be Serie A giants in earlier part of last decade but both teams have hit mediocrity over an extended period of time, albeit for
different reasons.
Both the clubs failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League last season and will look to make amends. This match has the potential to kick start the league campaigns for both the teams and a victory for either side will be three highly
critical points accumulated.
Bianconeri machine rolling
Following a poor start to the season where Bianconeri could only muster four points in as many games, many expected Juventus to have yet another disastrous season. The arrival of Luigi Del Neri, who had done fantastic work with Sampdoria
in the past seasons, was applauded by the Bianconeri faithful. The coach has taken his time but it was worth the wait for Juventus are a completely revamped side. Indeed some of the performances this season have been reminiscent of La Vecchia Signora of old.
New sporting director Giuseppe Marotta has done some inspired transfer work with cut-price captures of Milos Krasic, Alberto Aquilani and Marco Motta. Aquilani and Krasic in particular have been the most impressive Juve players in the early stages of the season.
The former European and Italian Champions are hitting the stride and have accumulated 23 points from the opening 13 matches. As things stand, Juventus are occupying fourth place in the Serie A charts – last Champions League berth – and
are just six points off the summit. Del Neri’s men have gone unbeaten in their last nine Serie A games and things are looking extremely bright for Bianconeri.
Juventus will look to record a home win against an injury depleted Viola outfit to get back in Scudetto contention. With the likes of Inter Milan and Lazio dropping points and Roma still exorcising their early season demons, time is ripe
for Del Neri to climb up the rankings.
Viola looking to recover
The current manager of Italy Cesare Prandelli was the Viola boss for a five year period from 2005 to 2010 and returned the club to the heights where it truly belonged. However, Cesare Prandelli left for pastures new and the club had to
bring in Sinisa Mihajlovic in an emergency move.
In complete contrast to his playing days, former Lazio and Inter player has had little success in his short managerial career so far and his latest odyssey with Viola has been little different. Viola made a disastrous start to their Serie
A campaign and recorded four defeats from their opening eight games. Fiorentina’s severe injury crisis didn’t help the tactician either as calls for his head began to echo.
To his credit however, Mihajlovic has taken control of the wobbling ship and Viola have recorded three victories from their last six games. The statistics don’t look too impressive but keeping in mind the fact that two of these games were
against Scudetto contenders AS Roma and AC Milan, Mihajlovic hasn’t done too badly.
Viola are placed 13th in the league with 15 points and are yet to record a victory away from home. However a victory will propel Fiorentina to 10th in the league and Mihajlovic will look to do just that.
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