Cristiano Ronaldo marked his return to action with a brace as Juventus thumped Spezia 4-1 to get back to winning ways in Serie A on Sunday.
Serie A
Result: Spezia 1-4 Juventus
Date: 01 November 2020
Venue: Orogel Stadium-Dino Manuzzi
Juve took the lead with a quarter of an hour gone. It was a good throughball into Weston McKennie on the right of the box and he squared it to Alvaro Morata who put it into the far bottom corner.
The Bianconeri came close to doubling their advantage soon after. Morata played a good throughball forward to pick out Federico Chiesa on the edge of the box and he took it around the defender before drilling his shot just wide of the goal.
Spezia had their first decent opportunity on the half-hour mark. M'Bala Nzola was running onto Matteo Ricci's throughball and he was one-on-one with Buffon when he completely missed the ball. He managed to get onto the keeper's clearance and touch it back to Ricci, but his shot was just wide of the near post.
And Spezia equalised moments after. Tommaso Pobega's run to the edge of the box was picked out by Paolo Bartolomei and he hit his low shot first time. It took a deflection which caught out Gianluigi Buffon before finding the bottom corner.
Juventus made their first change of the game in the 56th minute and it was Ronaldo replacing Paulo Dybala. And the Portuguese superstar gave the Old Lady the lead just three minutes after his introduction.
Ronaldo was one-on-one with the goalkeeper when Morata picked him out in the box and he took the ball around Provedel and slotted the ball into the back of the net to score on his return to the team.
It was clearly a game for the substitutes as Adrien Rabiot scored Juve's third within minutes of replacing Rodrigo Bentancur when he timed his run perfectly to stay onside and get the ball on the left of the box before taking it around Terzi and Provedel before slotting it into the bottom-left corner.
The visitors won a penalty in the 75th minute after Chiesa was brought down by Salvador Ferrer. Ronaldo stepped up and scored with a chipped effort from the spot to round off a big win.
