On Thursday, February 10th, 2022 the winter signing of Dušan Vlahović proved ever so important as Vlahović scored a late goal for the defending champion Juventus in order to squeeze into the Italian Cup semifinals with Juve’s 2 to 1 victory over Sassuolo.
The former Fiorentina striker did a great job in order to get passed Mert Müldür, and he was fortunate that his decisive shot took an impactful bounce off of the Brazilian defender, Ruan, so that his side could to finally push past the exceptional goal tender of Sassuolo in Gianluca Pegolo during the 88th minute of game play last Thursday, February 10th, 2022.
The 40 – year – old strong goalkeeper, Pegolo, had turned – out multiple excellent and outstanding saves in order to keep the visiting side in the contest, especially during the 2nd – half of this quarterfinal battle with a trip to the Coppa Italia semifinal match on the line.
Scoring Plays of this Match
In the 3rd – minute of this match, Paulo Dybala, got Juventus off to an amazing start of game action when Dybala translated the loose rebound into a goal score following Weston McKennie’s initial shot which was ultimately blocked by a Sassuolo defender.
The visitors (Sassuolo) ended up rallying later on though as Hamed Traorè scored the game’s equalizing goal at that point during the 24th – minute of the contest. The Ivorian midfielder superbly played a 1 – 2 with Gianluca Scamaccain order to push the ball past a Juve defender, and then he let a nasty shot take flight with some intense curling action that found the inside of the far post to eventually hit some net despite facing 3 – more.
That goal score by Sassuolo served to conclusively force a serious reaction from Juventus, but the crafty goal – tender in Pegolo saved shots from both McKennie as well as Vlahović in order to keep Sassuolo even with Juve at the halftime break, and things did not slow down once the 2nd – half of play started either.
Gianluca Pegolo once again denied McKennie of a goal from point – blank range, and Matthijs de Ligt struck the goal – post prior to the rebound coming off of Leonardo Bonucci and ended up going over. Pegolo then stopped Álvaro Morata, followed by him leaping like a fast as fuck grasshopper in order to rob Adrien Rabiot of a goal with less than 10 – minutes remaining in the match. This game would have gotten ugly for Sassuolo if it were not for the very strong performance by their goalkeeper, Pegolo.
The Italian Cup Semifinal Matches
The 10 – man Fiorentina defeated Atalanta propelling them into the Italian Cup semifinals where they will face off against Juventus. On the other side of the bracket in the Coppa Italia AC Milan will play Inter Milan. The winner of those 2 – games with play in the finals for the Italian Cup championship.
Sources:
The Associated Press News Services. “Vlahović scores late to put Juve into Italian Cup semifinals”. The Associated Press. February 10, 2022.
Bonn, Kyle. “Coppa Italia quarterfinals bracket, schedule, results & highlights for 2022 Italian Cup”. The Sporting News. February 10, 2022.