Well, that’s that. A spirited effort by ten-man Roma in the closing stages after some young blood was brought on for some old-timers, but it wasn’t quite enough. Juve retain a nine-point lead at the top of the table - the title was probably over before this game anyway, and given Juve have the edge in the head-to-head record too, it would take something fairly spectacular for them not to take the title from here.
It’s a sobering thought that Juve drew with the second-best team in the division without Andrea Pirlo and Paul Pogba, the latter rested just because Max Allegri fancied it.
Still, thanks for joining - good night all.
Updated
Full-time: Roma 1-1 Juventus
Peeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 2: Vidal is complaining about something. Not sure what.
90 mins: Top trolling from Lichtsteiner here, as he goes down with ‘cramp’ in what’s been called a textbook Boubacar Barry move. He’s subbed off, with Simone Padoin taking his place.
89 mins: Gervinho tries to dribble in from the left, but he’s eventually crowded out. Juve don’t do a very good job of clearing the thing and it eventually finds its way out to Holebas, but his cross is abysmal and another chance goes.
87 mins: Oddly, despite having an extra man, Juventus look more defensively vulnerable here. Gervinho runs into some space and onto a long pass forwards, but despite the room Buffon dashes out and boots it away.
86 mins: Gervinho makes tracks towards goal and feeds to Iturbe, but his left-footed effort is pulled and scuffed and deflected and Buffon runs across to kick it out for a throw.
84 mins: Vidal gets the most needless booking of the game - and there’s plenty of competition - for chopping down Nainggolan after a free-kick had already been awarded against Juve.
83 mins: A sub for Juve, as Morata goes off, replaced by youngster Kingsley Coman. Evra receives some treatment after a foul by Pereyra.
82 mins: Nainggolan tries a shot from way out right along the floor, bodies strewn left and right from a series of challenges like it’s the opening scene from ‘Saving Private Ryan’, but while his effort is straight at Buffon, again the intent is good.
80 mins: This is excellent now from Roma, who have been revitalised by the introduction of the more dynamic Iturbe and Nainggolan. The former breaks towards the box and tries a left-footed shot, but it’s scuffed badly wide. The intent is there, though, and that’s what’s important for Roma at this stage.
79 mins: Nainggolan wastes little time in getting into the book, flying through Marchisio and ‘earning’ a yellow card.
78 mins: Lovely free-kick is clipped over to the far post where Keita heads back across goal, and it goes in via Marchisio. A brief debate ensues about whether it should be the Roma man’s goal or an OG, but if Glenn Murray can have his Aaron Cresswell-aided effort at the weekend, then Keita can have that one.
Updated
GOAL! Roma 1-1 Juventus (Keita 78)
And we’re level!
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77 mins: Iturbe dashes down the right after some neat play from the other two substitutes Nainggolan and Florenzi, and he flies to the turf after a challenge from Chiellini. The Italian defender protests his innocence, but he’s booked.
75 mins: Ooof. Vidal absolutely barrels into Iturbe, and is lucky not to get a booking himself. Florenzi appeals at length to the ref’s better nature, but he is unmoved.
73 mins: And here is Nainggolan, replacing De Rossi as ten-man Roma chase this one.
72 mins: Buffon is finally called into action as Manolas heads towards goal, with the keeper shovelling the ball wide.
71 mins: Change for Roma as Iturbe replaces Totti. Looks like Nainggolan is about to come on, too.
70 mins: Another booking, this time for Marchisio who raked Pjanic with his studs. Gervinho lobbied hard for that yellow, and is satisfied with the result.
68 mins: Juve scoring from a free-kick and their opponents having a man sent off isn’t going to do anything for those conspiracy theories.
67 mins: Gervinho goes down and he’s not happy about it. Nothing given, though.
65 mins: Meanwhile, Rudi Garcia makes a change to deal with the sending off, as Florenzi replaces Ljajic.
64 mins: And from the free-kick conceded by Torosidis, Tevez beautifully curls a free-kick into the bottom corner to make him Serie A’s top scorer and perhaps win the title for Juventus.
Updated
GOAL! Roma 0-1 Juventus (Tevez 64)
Things happening!
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RED CARD! Torosidis sent off!
62 mins: Well, that felt inevitable. Vidal breaks towards the box and goes to ground, clipped by the Greek defender but it didn’t look terribly intentional. No matter, and he gets a second yellow card.
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60 mins: Another booking - Yanga-Mbwia this time, and that’s six for the game.
59 mins: For lack of anything interesting to do in this game, how about you have a look at this clip which will make you feel bad about every mean thing you’ve ever said about Ian Wright.
Updated
57 mins: The ref really is getting into his yellow card stride now - Pjanic gets a booking now for a foul on Pererya.
55 mins: From the subsequent free-kick Ljajic fires the ball into the middle, Pjanic gets his head to it but Buffon gathers at the second attempt. He could quite easily have claimed it first-time, but he quite possibly fumbled it a little to keep everyone entertained. Everyone likes a juggling act, after all. Next: sword-swallowing.
54 mins: Man, if it wasn’t for the bookings this game would be unwatchable. Morata is the latest to have his collar felt by the referee after hacking down Yanga-Mbwia.
Updated
53 mins: Evra tries what I think was a pass through the middle looking for Tevez, but it turned out to be a drilled ball exactly in the middle of three or four players. Not good.
52 mins: Now Lichtsteiner has a shot! Another shot! It goes wide too, but that’s two shots in two minutes. It’s all kicking off now.
51 mins: Oh, there’s something. Pjanic gives the ball away and Juve counter at some pace, Vidal finds himself in some space just outside the box but his left-footed shot is pulled across goal and goes wide.
50 mins: Nope, still nothing happening. What you up to?
48 mins: Nothing of note has happened so far, apart from a foul throw by Totti. So nothing of note has happened so far.
46 mins: The second half is GO! GO! GO! GO!
Half-time entertainment...
Half-time: Roma 0-0 Juventus
Peeeeeeeeeeeep. And that’s the break. It hasn’t been much good so far, which will obviously suit Juve just fine. De Sanctis isn’t happy about something as the players go off for their plastic cups of orange squash, but it’s not clear exactly what. Could’ve been on of his teammates.
45 mins: Lichtsteiner crosses from the left, it’s deflected up in the air and Yanga-Mbwia plays about the most casual big hoof clear you’re likely to see. Worked, though.
42 mins: Pererya yanks Holebas over and the stadium waits for the referee to award the free-kick, but no such award is forthcoming and play is invited to continue. Tevez goes into the space left by the prone Holebas and drives a shot across goal, but a half-block/deflection takes it wide. De Sanctis catches the resultant corner.
Updated
41 mins: A booking for Evra, whose crime was to take down Torosidis with a lusty hack. A fair call, on balance.
39 mins: This Roma policy of giving Holebas the ball on the left for him to boom in crosses would make slightly more sense if they actually had someone who could head the ball. He tries a slightly different approach this time, with a pass down the line, but it’s what you might call absolute trousers and dribbles behind for a goal-kick.
37 mins: Holebas tries another curling cross from deep, but that one is too high, too deep and too far in front of the forwards. But other than that, excellent.
35 mins: Yanga-Mbwia almost chucks his team into a massive vat of poo by playing a badly-underhit backpass to De Sanctis, but the keeper does well to get out and clear before Morata can take advantage.
34 mins: Keita has another wrestle - rumours are that his hero as a child was Shawn ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ Michaels - this time with Morata on the left. Again, the Roma man wins the free-kick.
33 mins: Morata recovers from that assault just in time to take a shot, but his left-footed effort was snatched at rather and it flashes across the face of goal, and wide.
32 mins: De Rossi finally gets the booking he should’ve got in the opening 20 seconds, this one for chopping at Morata’s ankles like a council worker chopping down a dead elm.
31 mins: Another cross from Holebas, this one a little more measured and delicate, but there’s nobody attacking it properly and Bonucci completes a training drill header clear.
29 mins: Holebas causes a bit of panic in the Juve box by putting in a cross from deep, but the ball bounces off Keita’s stomach and back to Gigi Buffon before anything dangerous can be created.
28 mins: Vaguely amusing moment as Evra prepares to take a throw, only realising at the last moment that it had actually been awarded to Roma, and Ljajic was taking it with another ball about five yards down the line.
26 mins: Another close thing for Juve, as Evra streaks down the left like a man half his age, fizzing a cross at about belly-button height into the middle, but there was a little too much fizz on that and it eludes everyone.
Updated
24 mins: Morata appears baffled as to why a free-kick was awarded against him. It’s because you booted Manolas up in the air, Alvaro.
22 mins: Oooooof, sweet fancy Moses that was almost a comic own-goal. Pereyra gets down the right and measures a low cross into the area, looking for Morata at the back stick, but Manolas measures a careful finish towards his own goal, which goes about half a yard past the post. If that had gone in, you could’ve called it a ‘measured finish.’
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20 mins: Keita and Lichtsteiner wrestle on halfway. They go down in an aggressive embrace, the ref guesses and gives Roma the free-kick. Take THAT, Juve conspiracy theorists.
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19 mins: The first booking of the night, and it’s very much been coming. Torosidis is the man who goes into the book, jumping in rather robustly on Bonucci. On the basis of the first 19 minutes, absolutely no way this ends 11 vs 11.
17 mins: Ljajic skips into the box from the left and manages to keep the ball despite the close attention of a few defenders, but rather rudely none of his teammates decide to bother helping him out, and he’s dispossessed. Totti is then lucky to get away without a booking after a foul on Lichtsteiner, while replays suggest that a block by Evra a few moments ago may have been a handball.
Updated
15 mins: Neither side really managing to build much yet. Lichtsteiner finds Pereyra down the right, but Mapou Yanga-Mbwia belts across to snuff that particular move.
12 mins: Caceres dallies over a clearance rather, and his field of vision is filled with what probably looks like about 50 feet of De Rossi, and the mass of beard and spite inevitably blocks the thing, but only for a throw.
10 mins: Some fancy footwork by Marchisio gets him out of a spot of bother just outside his own box, but other than that not much is currently happening.
7 mins: Lichtsteiner dances down the right and cuts the ball back as he reaches the byline, but Holebas is there to tidy up. Which he doesn’t do terribly well, like if you trusted a goldfish with a dustpan and brush, merely shovelling the ball out to Evra around 25 yards out, who feeds Vidal on the edge of the box but his shot on the spin goes wide.
5 mins: “You might want to mention that the referee tonight is Dinele Orsato,” points out JR in Illinois. “I expect him to be busy.”
Indeed, JR. Meanwhile, Gervinho’s heavy touch stops a potential Roma move before it really starts, but you probably knew that anyway.
3 mins: Free-kick to Juve out on the right that Claudio Marchisio is lining up, which he clips to the back stick looking for Patrice Evra, but he can’t get there and it’s cleared by Roma.
2 mins: “I don’t want Totti to ever retire,” writes Ruth Purdue. “Things will never be the same.” Preach, Ruth, preach.
Updated
1 mins: And we’re away, Juventus kicking off as the slight fog from the pre-match flares hangs over the pitch. Daniele de Rossi starts the game in the most Daniele de Rossi way you could possibly imagine, by going through the back of Arturo Vidal within the first 20 seconds. No booking, remarkably.
The teams are out, and the Roma anthem is ringing out loud and proud...
Good to see this secret is being kept...
Bugger to being impartial @NickMiller79. I won't tell anyone you are rooting for us.
— Treble Nikki (@Treble_Nikki) March 2, 2015
As a reminder, here’s what happened the last time these two teams met. It was spicy, to say the least. Listen out for the last goal, when the commentator’s life crumbles around his ears.
UPDATE: kick-off isn’t actually due until 20.00 GMT. Something to do with Parma, although I imagine that any problem in Serie A at the moment is blamed on Parma. Kit clash? Parma. Beer’s off? Parma. Syria? Parma.
Team news
Roma
De Sanctis; Torosidis, Manolas, Yanga-Mbiwa, Holebas; Pjanic, De Rossi, Keita; Gervinho, Totti, Ljajic.
Juventus
Buffon; Caceres, Bonucci, Chiellini; Lichtsteiner, Vidal, Marchisio, Pereyra, Evra; Morata, Tevez
Preamble
One day, the robots will take over. They will overpower our meek and feeble bodies if they haven’t already outfoxed our puny brains. We’ll be forced to dance to their tune (Kraftwerk, probably), grease their joints and buff their mainframes. We like to think that day is some time away, that we’ll hold off the advance of the machines for long enough that we’ll die and it will be our children’s problem, but it could all be closer than you think. And that’s entirely/partly thanks to Roma, who are doing this, which a) we’re basically interpreting as a sure signal that someone will be showing up very soon to demand our clothes, our boots and our motorcycle, and b) contains the news that through this terrifying technology fans will be able to see “shoeselfies” of players, the absence of which, we can probably agree, has been holding football back from really catching on all these years.
Thus, if you perhaps think that you’d prefer to not be subservient to a mechanical being, you’ll be supporting Juventus tonight. And if you are supporting Juventus, then congratulations because you’re a fan of the Italian champions elect, currently nine points clear of the team in second place, who just happen to be tonight’s opponents, Roma. Should the Old Lady win then we can just about pack up and go home, handing the Scudetto trophy over for the fourth season on the spin, Serie A basically becoming a version of the SPL but with better mozzarella.
However, should Roma prevail then we will at least have the pretence of a genuine title race, six points in it with 13 games remaining, so while the Guardian will obviously remain absolutely impartial, maintaining the editorial standards that have kept this institution standing for upwards of seven years, in the interests of wider, erm, interests, it would probably be for the best that the Giallorossi win this one. Or, at least if they can’t manage that, it would be smashing if Francesco Totti could do something like this again.
Max Allegri is certainly doing an acceptable job of pretending that it won’t all be over when this one is all over. “After Monday’s game we’ll have another 13 matches and 39 points to aim for, Napoli are closing in and are capable of enjoying a great climax to the season.” Sure, big horse, sure. You keep telling yourself that to try and ensure your players aren’t ruinously complacent, but we all know the truth.
At least let us hope for a similar level of spice as the reverse fixture between these two sides, when Roma were, in their minds at least, well and truly robbed of three points by the sort of refereeing decisions that, the more conspiratorially-minded would say, Juve have enjoyed down the years. Here’s Paolo Bandini to explain at the time:
If life, as Al Pacino told us in Any Given Sunday, is a game of inches, then Italian football remains a game of centimetres. Gianluca Rocchi could have done with that ruler (or better yet, advanced satellite imagery) at Juventus Stadium this weekend, in a match that would be utterly defined by his refereeing decisions.
In the first half alone he awarded three penalties. All of them would provoke debate. The first arrived when a free kick struck Maicon’s arm on the edge of the Roma area. Rocchi initially signalled for another free kick, but changed his mind after Juventus’s players protested. The defender had been part of a wall formed inside the box, a fact confirmed to the referee as they pointed out the line of “magic spray” he had used to discourage Roma’s players from encroaching.
That evidence was good enough for Rocchi, but replays showed Maicon had leapt forward as the ball was in the air. With his arm raised in front of him, had the infringement taken place outside the box? No replay could provide a definitive answer.
So let’s pray for some drama, some spice, some aggro. And if none of those things look likely, you can at least watch with a Manchester United fan and watch as those salt tears stream down their faces, as Paul Pogba dominates another midfield.
Kick-off: 19.45 GMT
Updated
Buona sera. Nick will be here shortly. Until then, why not brush up on your calcio history with Guardian Sport Network’s series of Serie A alternative club guides? Here’s The Gentleman Ultra on the birth of AS Roma:
In the 1920s, no fewer than eight football clubs represented Italy’s capital. This superfluity meant they were unable to compete with the dominant clubs of northern Italy. AS Roma was formed on 22 July 1927, from a merger of three clubs: Alba, Fortitudo and Roman.
The only major club to resist this merger was Lazio and despite the fact the Aquile had been founded 27 years earlier, the Romanisti immediately considered their team as the peoples’ club. Why? Then, as now, there were more Roma fans, having absorbed supporters from three different clubs.
In their early years, the club also settled in the heart of working-class Rome, playing their matches in the Testaccio neighbourhood. But a crucial part of the answer also lies in an issue touched on by Federico: how could Rome’s first club, Lazio, have neglected the chance to adopt the city’s colours and emblem. It’s a decision that bewilders locals and one that may have pushed many working-class Romans towards AS Roma.
You can read the full story here.
