With Juventus chasing after fourth place as the Serie A season reaches the home stretch, they couldn’t afford too many slip-ups against teams that they should be beating.
Unfortunately for the Bianconeri, their footing got a little less sure in the second half of Saturday night’s match against Sassuolo.
Juve dominated the first half and went ahead early after a lightning counterattack, but couldn’t make that dominance pay with more goals.
With the door open, Sassuolo took advantage of some awful defending early in the second half to even the score.
Juve couldn’t conjure as many chances as they had in the first half, but were given a huge out in the last 10 minutes when Jay Idzes was assessed by VAR to have handled the ball in the box.
But Manuel Locatelli, whose penalty 10 months ago had confirmed Juve’s top-four status last season, bottled this attempt, condemning Juve to a 1-1 draw and leaving them at the mercy of relegation-threatened Pisa to keep pace with Como.