This season’s first Derby d’Italia between Juventus and Inter Milan will cap off Sunday’s Serie A action.
Both sides are well past the bragging rights as they have ground to cover on their seasonal goals.
Despite fielding an understrength line-up against a star-studded Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus left a good impression in midweek’s 2-1 home defeat in the final Champions League group stage round.
Under-fire coach Massimiliano Allegri knew his men were outside the knock-out stage picture regardless of the outcome but could still be proud of their performance.
Juventus have no time to moan about their first Champions League group-phase elimination since 2013/14 if they’re to stay relevant in the Serie A top-four race.
While fans continue to be vocal in appeals to force Allegri’s sacking, the record-time Italian champions have enjoyed a mini-revival in domestic football.
They have won three consecutive league matches without conceding in the run-up to this encounter and will take the field in high spirits, hoping to make this mammoth clash a turning point in their stuttering season.
However, Inter have other plans for this meeting as they bid to get back to winning ways following a 2-0 defeat at Bayern Munich in midweek Champions League action.
Julian Nagelsmann’s high-flyers may have knocked their Italian counterparts down from a seven-game unbeaten run (W6, D1), but the Nerazzurri still clung on to a runner-up spot in Group C.
There’s no time to celebrate the elimination of Barcelona, with Simone Inzaghi’s men facing an uphill task to battle their way back into the Scudetto race.
Serie A pacesetters Napoli are already six points off, meaning any upcoming slip-up could push Inter further away from winning the second league title in three years.
Match Preview
Juventus
Defensive resilience has been a rare bright spot in an otherwise abysmal 2022/23 season for Juventus, as they’ve conceded a league-low seven goals in the opening 12 Serie A rounds.
With seven top-flight clean sheets under their belt, the Bianconeri would be forgiven for relishing their chances of avoiding an unwanted piece of history featuring consecutive league defeats to Inter in a single calendar year for the first time since 1987.
Adding to the home faithful’s belief, Juventus haven’t lost any of their six Serie A outings at the Allianz Stadium this season (W4, D2), scoring an eye-catching average of 2.5 goals per game.
Inter Milan
Hakan Calhanoglu’s match-winning strike in a 1-0 beating of Juventus last April presents Inter with the prospect of taking down their arch-rivals twice in a row for the first time since 2003/04.
Inzaghi knows in-depth about tearing Juve apart. Since making his managerial debut in April 2016 as a young coach in charge of Lazio, he has clocked up seven wins in 18 competitive matches against them.
There’s another reason for enthusiasm in the visiting camp. Inter have strung together four Serie A wins in the build-up to this trip, scoring at least two goals on each occasion.
Juventus vs Inter Milan Potential Line-ups
Juventus (3-5-2): Wojciech Szczesny; Danilo, Leonardo Bonucci, Gleison Bremer; Juan Cuadrado, Nicolo Fagioli, Manuel Locatelli, Adrien Rabiot, Filip Kostic; Dusan Vlahovic, Arkadiusz Milik.
Inter (3-5-2): Andre Onana; Milan Skriniar, Francesco Acerbi, Alessandro Bastoni; Denzel Dumfries, Nicolo Barella, Hakan Calhanoglu, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Federico Dimarco; Lautaro Martinez, Edin Dzeko.
How to Watch?
Juventus vs Inter, alongside all other Serie A fixtures, is available to watch online via Serie A live streams.
Juventus vs Inter Milan Prediction
The last three Serie A meetings between Juventus and Inter have yielded a full-time margin of under 1.5 goals, with the H2H stakes evenly balanced in this sequence (W1, D1, L1).
Given both sides’ current league status, another cagey contest is well on the cards, and there’s a feeling that whoever scores first will take the win.
But we expect a share of spoils to be the order of the day.
Juventus 1-1 Inter Milan
