Juventus

A lot can change in a few months. The gap between the draw for the Champions League round of 16 and the matches themselves can be vast. Even in countries where a winter break (or the lack thereof) is not just an annual excuse for under-pressure managers, the sides which face off in February can be entirely different from those which were first drawn out of the pots. Now, after a relatively normal week in Serie A, what should we expect from the Italian teams still in Europe’s premier cup competition?

On February 22nd and March 14th, two titans of the goalkeeping position will clash in their final duel at the highest level of the game. Perhaps we shouldn’t ever write-off the possibility of the 35-year-old Iker Casillas and the 39-year-old Gianluigi Buffon encountering each other on the pitch again, but we should be exceptionally grateful for at least one last bout.

Scoring too many goals is graceless. In Italy, when a team gets a few goals ahead, an unspoken agreement settles over the pitch; the team in the lead won’t score too many goals and the team behind won’t try too hard to get back into the game. The energy and the pressure eases off and the three points are settled early on.

Cast your eye over the fixture list this past week and you might be forgiven for thinking that Serie A was taking a moment to recuperate. As the Coppa Italia fixtures grew increasingly heated, with the major sides playing one another, the league featured nothing of the sort. When the highest-profile game is Udinese versus Milan, then the week’s results can probably be pencilled in before a ball has been kicked.

Juventus defeated Milan 2-1 in the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia on Wednesday which, unfortunately for Italian football, isn’t really news. Juventus have won five straight Serie A titles, and, even with the higher likelihood of upsets in knockout football, they’ve managed to win the Coppa Italia two straight years.

Their hegemony of Italian football makes a neutral viewer more apt to turn to other competitions, like The Great British Bake Off. But the romance of Italian football can still be found if you know where to look. You should be looking at Carlos Bacca.

Snapchat knows how to keep us entertained. The popular social media platform recently paired up with Europe’s top football clubs to debut a series of lenses for fans to show their support. 

The new lenses are available for fans of Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, PSG, Marseille, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid and Barcelona. Those who are fans of these clubs will only be able to use the virtual face filters at each team’s respective stadium for the rest of the season. 

After an endeavor to make the Old Lady young again, Juventus FC have a new logo:

Agnelli: "This new logo is a symbol of the Juventus way of living." #2beJUVENTUS pic.twitter.com/x5B3fapqGJ

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) January 16, 2017

For anyone wondering, let’s get the essentials out of the way: Fiorentina versus Juventus is a big match. This is truer for one side than the other, however. Before Sunday’s game, Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci told the press that while the fixture was the most important date in most Florentines’ football calendar, it was just another game for the reigning champions.