01 December 2018
Juventus Women put four unanswered goals past Sassuolo as they followed up last week's impressive victory at Fiorentina with another convincing win.Juve began the game with intent and Cristiana Girelli drew an early save out of the Sassuolo keeper before twice striking the woodwork – the first a deflected effort which left the keeper stranded and the second a header that came back off the bar, with Cecilia Salvai incredibly hitting the bar again from the follow-up.The Bianconere kept probing for an opener and laid siege to the Sassuolo goal as the first period came to a close, Eniola Aluko going close on a couple of occasions, but were unable to make the breakthrough.Sassuolo continued to defend after the restart and finally folded 12 minutes into the half as Girelli's angled effort gave Rita Guarino's side the lead.Six minutes later Valentina Cernoia doubled their advantage with a shot from long range. At 2-0 up, Juve found more space to play in and on 75 minutes they added a third when Cernoia found Aluko with a clever ball forward. Benedetta Glionna then rounded off the scoring on the counter-attack five minutes from time.
POST-MATCH REACTION
“In the first half we did everything except score,” Valentina Cernoia observed after the game. “Then in the second half we took our chances better and got our reward. “We said we would play with the same approach we had in Florence. We didn't want to take any steps back. “I'm happy we won and pleased with my own performance.”Head coach Rita Guarino said: “I thought it was going to be one of those days. We created so many chances without managing to score, but our finishing was better in the second half. “We're starting to gel and it wasn't something that was going to happen overnight. We're more compact now than we were at the start. We're hungry and determined and I see it every day in training. "We knew we'd have to face lots of tough opponents early on and our defeat in Milan helped us understand that giving 90% is not enough to win – you must always put in 100%. We've changed our outlook and we want to do much better.”
