As a history making campaign comes to an end on home turf against Sampdoria tomorrow evening, we asked ourselves one simple question: what has been the best league game played at Juventus Stadium this season?
Sifting through the 18 Serie A fixtures already played at home this term, our Juventus.com experts drew up an elite four-match shortlist based on the criteria of excitement, quality of goals, importance and relevance to the champions’ march to the title.
After much deliberation and the tough elimination of three equally gripping choices, the quartet of candidates selected were as follows:
- Juventus 2-1 Torino, 31 October 2015
- Juventus 3-1 Fiorentina, 13 December 2015
- Juventus 1-0 Roma, 24 January 2016
- Juventus 1-0 Napoli, 13 February 2016
The job of actually choosing the best of the bunch however proved to be too much, so instead we passed the responsibilities over to you, the fans!
In a two-hour flash poll conducted on our official English language Twitter profile @juventusfcen posing the same question we had asked ourselves on Friday morning, it quickly became clear that there was going to be a runaway winner.
And, two hours later, the early signs were confirmed: with a staggering 53 per cent of the vote, February’s Simone Zaza-inspired last-minute triumph over title rivals Napoli was unsurprisingly elected as your favourite Juventus Stadium match of the Serie A 2015/16 season in a landslide victory.
Although often considered the result that kicked off the Bianconeri’s astonishing march to the Scudetto and the first of 15 consecutive wins through the winter, October’s 2-1 derby day drama had to settle for third place (17 per cent), with December’s comeback against then league leaders Fiorentina edging into second place (20 per cent).
Meanwhile, Paulo Dybala’s instinctive strike in January’s tussle with Roma was resigned to last place with just 9 per cent of the vote.
After all, the showdown with the Maurizio Sarri’s Partenopei did have absolutely everything: the importance of the occasion with first facing second, the seemingly unstoppable runs of form of both sides, the magnificent saves from Gianluigi Buffon and a sensational long-range winner with two minutes of normal time remaining to round it all off.
Already crowned **February’s goal of the month**, Zaza’s heroics now have a second Juventus.com seal of approval, this time contributing to the finest 90 minutes of league action to be played at Juventus Stadium this campaign.
All that is left to bow out in style against Samp...