[[[soccer==]!]] Juventus VS Atalanta live match 12 August 2023
Loser: Roberto Pereyra2 of 6Pereyra limps off the field after his first-half injury. Valerio Pennicino/Getty ImagesJust as it seemed like Roberto Pereyra was about to start getting a chunk of playing time, he's been stalled again. Juventus fans who were clamoring for a trequartista in the summer transfer window seemed to have forgotten the Argentina international, whose performances in the hole last year were impressive. His ability to dribble and take a man on are precious commodities on a team where there isn't much of that to go around. The 24-year-old performed well on Sunday, playing sideline to sideline to open up the field in the attacking third and splitting Atalanta's back line apart several times.
Juventus vs Atalanta Live Score and Live Stream
Lazio and Roma emerged triumphant from those two games, and Juve are eight points off the latter, who top the Serie A table. The Bianconeri delivered one of their more comprehensive performances of the season. Paulo Dybala and Paul Pogba keyed the team to a 2-0 victory that could easily have much more had La Dea not gotten a fine performance from goalkeeper Marco Sportiello. Who were the big winners and losers from this important match? Let's delve a little deeper to find out. Winner: Paulo Dybala1 of 6Dybala celebrates his first-half screamer. Valerio Pennicino/Getty ImagesFour days after fans and media blasted coach Massimiliano Allegri for benching Paulo Dybala for Juve's Champions League match against Borussia Monchengladbach—and one day after Allegri hit back at those critics—the young Argentinian had what might be a breakout performance. During his pre-match press conference, per Football Italia, Allegri blasted critics of his move to sit Dybala midweek and suggested that it wasn't fair to put too much pressure on the 21-year-old.
He did the same thing against Genoa in September and was booked for unsportsmanlike play as a result. It's that tendency towards Hollywood play that is his one remaining weakness—one that he's overcoming in fits and starts. Regardless of that miss, however, the young Frenchman took a step in the right direction today, although it may be in the best interests of the team to rest him a bit soon with a stretch of big games on the horizon.
Atalanta vs Juventus stream: Watch Coppa Italia final
While WhoScored. com clocked him at five tackles, four interceptions and five clearances, those are volume stats accumulated after 90 minutes of near-constant Juve attacks. He was directly responsible for Juve's clincher after losing Mandzukic's run, and he was let out of jail by Sportiello after conceding the penalty Pogba missed. He was constantly on the wrong end of dribbles and was very lucky not to have been booked when he took out Dybala on the penalty. Certainly not a good day for Paletta, who is showing more and more that his 2013-14 season was a one-year wonder. Winner: Marco Sportiello5 of 6Sportiello's penalty save was the capper to an excellent day. MARCO BERTORELLO/Getty ImagesSportiello certainly showed something on Sunday.
Loser: Gabriel Paletta4 of 6Paletta concedes a second-half penalty. MARCO BERTORELLO/Getty ImagesIt was only two seasons ago that Gabriel Paletta enjoyed the best season of any center back in Serie A and earned himself a starting spot in the World Cup opener against England. How the mighty have fallen. An injury slowed him at the beginning of last season, and then he bailed out of the sinking ship that was Parma only to arrive at the mess that was AC Milan's 2014-15 campaign. The Rossoneri needed to off-load a center back this summer and chose Paletta as the man to go. His play for Atalanta has left a lot to be desired. Back in the starting lineup after being suspended for a red card, the 29-year-old was carved up all day long.
He also keyed several breakaways. But it was one of those counterattacks about 35 minutes in that threw a wrench into the gears. Pereyra pulled up hard after letting Dybala through on the run and collapsed to the field. There is no official word yet, but from the looks of it it had hamstring written all over it. It's a real shame for a man who was, once again, showing that he deserved to be on the field in big moments.
Dybala was without a doubt the man of the match. He played perfectly and made Mandzukic look better than he has for much of the season. The idea of the Argentine pairing with Alvaro Morata at full bore from the start is a tantalizing prospect—and Dybala must certainly have shown that he now deserves to be in the big matches from the beginning.
To this point, he'd fired in a pair of penalties and bundled a ball over the line on the run against Roma, but this was the one that really showed just how good he is. It wasn't the end of his day either. He set up Juve's second, and could very easily have scored four times. Right before the half, he hit a low, powerful first-timer off a beautiful pass. Sportiello didn't know much about it but was lucky it was right at him, and he saved with his feet. The second half saw Dybala snag a ball on the left wing and drive to the byline before sending in a hard low cross, giving Mario Mandzukic a simple tap-in. Later, he whizzed a free kick just beyond the post, then he was unlucky after his first touch on yet another through ball was just a bit too hard, leaving him a difficult shot on a bouncing ball rather than a more routine tap.
Juventus vs Atalanta live score, H2H and lineups
[TV] Juventus VS Atalanta live 12/08/2023