RON’S A KNOCKOUT ON DEBUT IN ITALY
£105m superstar signing helps Juventus pull victory out of the fire in a dramatic late charge
SAY what you want, but drama follows him everywhere. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Serie A debut was never going to be a quiet affair and so it proved.
There is not much the man who cost Juventus £105million this summer has not seen during his remarkable career but the final 10 minutes of a breathless clash on a breathless night in Verona are unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry.
It was anticipated that Juventus’s opening game of the new Serie A campaign would be a procession, that Ronaldo would crown his new life in Italy with a couple of goals and three easy points. Right?
Almost. Juventus won but it was only after an almighty scrap.
Ronaldo, of course, was central to the drama but during a late siege, with the score 2-2, his attempts to score a last-minute winner led to him knocking Chievo keeper Stefano Sorrentino out cold as they went for a cross.
As play continued, Paolo Dybala bundled the ball over the line.
The match officials did not award it straight away; they need goalline technology to confirm it had gone in.
Almost immediately the celebrations were cut short. VAR was used and Ronaldo was deemed to have used his hand as he strained to meet a cross.
If that wasn’t dramatic enough, the signal for five minutes of added time enabled Juventus to mount one more attack.
Again Ronaldo was in the middle but, on this occasion, Federico Bernardeschi beat him to it, tapping in from six yards.
They have not bought Ronaldo for games such as this, of course.
The investment in him is something Juventus hope will reap the ultimate dividend on June 1 next year in Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium and end their 22-year quest to become European champions. This, then, was a ‘getting to know you’ exercise. Ronaldo was clearly not at peak fitness and the stifling conditions in Verona took a toll from an early stage.
Drinks breaks were imperative and the pace of the contest ended up being far from frenzied.
Juventus started, though, like an express train. They had the lead after just 163 seconds when Douglas Costa’s freekick from the left flank caused mayhem in the area and two ricochets led the ball to fall invitingly for Sami Khedira, who thrashed in from eight yards.
Ronaldo hadn’t even had a touch at that point but knew immediately when that changed because the stadium erupted for him; that was in the fifth minute and by the eighth the second goal should have arrived but Giorgio Chiellini planted a header wide.
If Chiellini could have done better, the same was true for Ronaldo in the 13th minute. One of those moves that look to have come from a computer game — when passes zip left, right and back again without anyone breaking stride — ended with Ronaldo dragging his shot wide from 20 yards.
You could see he was enjoying it, though. Soon there were stepovers and there was even a cushioned lay-off with his back into the path of Paolo Dybala.
The best moment of all, though, was his pass around the corner in the 22nd minute that left Chievo midfielder Mattia Bani wondering what had happened.
Bani had attempted to close Ronaldo down but before he got there the 33-year-old angled his foot and cushioned a ball around Bani to Dybala before spinning and running off.
Bani looked like he had been mugged, chasing after Ronaldo but looking around unable to process the movement.
Then, inexplicably, Juventus allowed all their efforts to be ruined. Chievo were gifted an equaliser just before half-time when striker Mariusz Stepinski was left alone in the area to bury a header past Wojicech Szczesny.
Juventus stumbled at the start of the second half and gifted Chievo a second goal when Emanuele Giaccherini, once of Sunderland, dusted himself down after being tripped to convert a penalty.
In the end, they couldn’t repel wave after wave of attack. Leonardo Bonucci, back at Juve following a season at AC Milan, equalised with a header from a corner in the 79th minute.
Ronaldo, who ended up playing on the left wing, had a couple of opportunities but the debut goal he craved proved elusive. The win will do for now.