The champion Juventus defeated the Cup winner Napoli 2-0 and grabbed the trophy in the Italian Super Cup. The hero for the Old Lady was 35-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese superstar scored the decisive first goal of the match in the 64th minute. In this way, CR7 also set a historical record. He became the most successful player in the history with 760 goals for his clubs and the national team, surpassing Josef Bican.
The game was played at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Emilia and will also be remembered for the penalty missed in the 79th minute by Lorenzo Insigne. In the fifth minute of added time, the substitute Alvaro Morata sealed the game after a quick counterattack, in which he scored on an empty net. The Turin team last won the trophy in 2018, and Napoli – in 2014. In 2019, the Super Cup went to Lazio. For Juve this is the ninth Italian Super Cup in the history of the club, and Napoli remains with two.
Today’s game was also the first one between the two teams for the season, as the match between them from the championship, which was to be played on October 4, was eventually postponed due to the COVID cases in Napoli. Initially they were punished by taking away one point of their assets and an official victory for Juventus with 3-0, but after an appeal it was decided to play the match at a later date.
The first minutes were relatively quiet, as one of the more memorable moments was an inaccurate shot by Cristiano Ronaldo outside the penalty area. In the 12th minute, the Old Lady seriously threatened the door of David Ospina, as Danilo was stopped by the defense in blue and then the Colombian keeper deflected the Brazilian’s shot from close range. Subsequently, it turned out that in this situation there was a offside of Danilo.
Andrea Pirlo’s players were the more active team in the first half, but in the 20th minute the “The Parthenopeans” had the opportunity to take a direct free kick from a dangerous position for Wojciech Szczesny after a foul on Mario Rui. However, Lorenzo Insigne’s shot was too weak and fell straight into the hands of the Polish guard. Gradually Napoli became more active and in the 28th minute Lozano had an ideal chance to put Gennaro Gattuso’s players ahead in the result, but his header was not accurate enough and was saved by Szczesny.
The second half started with a dangerous attack by Juventus, in which Federico Bernardeschi, who had just appeared on the field in place of Federico Chiesa, could have put Juve ahead in the result, but from a very close distance he failed to score and Ospina nailed the ball to his hands. In the 64th minute Cristiano crossed on the right and although there was no Juventus player nearby, Manolas almost scored a comic own goal with a horrible play, but luckily for him the ball went into the corner. This also turned out to be bad for Gattuso’s team, because after the corner kick another player in the blue team – midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko acted clumsily and inadvertently assisted Cristiano Ronaldo. The ball bounced off Bakayoko’s body and landed right in the Portuguese lurking in front of Napoli’s door, who demonstrated his predatory instinct and with a relentless shot from close range stretched the net behind Ospina – 1-0 for the Old Lady.
The last seconds of the game were tense and dramatic. In the 94th minute, Napoli had a golden chance to equalize the score. After a cross from the right and a shot by a player of “The Parthenopeans” there was an insidious ricochet, but still Szczesny managed to react brilliantly and saved Juventus in this situation. Seconds later the reserve Alvaro Morata on an empty net scored for 2-0 after a counterattack of Juve and assisted by Juan Cuadrado. Immediately after that, the referee put an end to the game which gave another trophy for Juventus.
