It’s Danilo’s 100th game with Juventus. Nobody wants to disappoint Danilo on such a blessed day, right?
Here we go again, friends. Juventus have a relegation batsman on schedule and a very limited amount of resources are available due to all these injuries, which are still causing problems ahead of a major Champions League match on the horizon.
As you might expect, Max Allegri is very aware of this. So he said what he said during his pre-match press conference on Friday.
"We have reached the turning point of the season," Allegri said. "With two months to play, it's the run-in. There is an international break in a week, but in the meantime, we have an intense week ahead of us.
"Our first objective is to beat Samp, then the second is to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Champions League."
That first objective comes tonight as Juventus head to Marassi to face a struggling Sampdoria side that is just a few points above the relegation zone and hopes that Marco Giampaolo can work his magic once again. Before we can start thinking about Wednesday night's potentially season-defining match against Villarreal in Turin, we should first think about what's happening in Genoa. And that means there is hope that Juventus, injury and all, can continue to take points, even if they are winning pretty ugly these days.
This is how Allegri is playing these days. Yes, even more than before this season when the team was healthy and really had the ability to keep their players fresh and try to rotate.
However, the certainty cannot be said about his team's position these days. They're getting results, but there's so little chance of turning around that they have a few extra days off this week, with no midweek fixture, to hopefully pay their dividends.
Translation: Juventus need to keep up the good times to get a better idea of what's at stake in this game, the next game and the next few.
Like Allegri said, Juve can no longer afford to know that there are two months to go. Home care is a business. There is business to take care of in the Champions League - which it hopes will go on beyond this coming Wednesday. There has to be a win, and it should start in the next few hours.
MATCH INFO
When: Saturday, March 12, 2022.
Where: Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris, Genoa, Italy.
Official kickoff time: 6 p.m. local time in Italy and around Europe, 5 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 12 p.m. Eastern time, 9 a.m. Pacific time.
STARTING LINEUPS
Juventus starting XI (4-3-3/4-4-2): Szczesny; Danilo, de Ligt, Rugani, Pellegrini; Locatelli, Arthur, Rabiot; Cuadrado, Kean, Morata.
Juventus bench: Perin, Pinsoglio, De Sciglio, Alex Sandro, Stramaccioni, Miretti, Vlahovic, Aké.
Sampdoria starting XI (4-3-1-2): Falcone; Bereszynski, Yoshida, Colley, Augello; Candreva, Rincon, Thorsby; Sensi; Caputo, Quagliarella.
HOW TO WATCH
Television: BT Sport 3 (United Kingdom).
Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); BTSport.com, BT Sport app (United Kingdom); DAZN (Italy).
Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.