Lazio vs. Juventus match preview: Time, TV schedule, and how to ...

For all of the negatives that we’ve seen from Juventus over the past three months, there has been one positive thing to boast about: Max Allegri’s squad, probably to everybody’s surprise, has a 2-0 lead on aggregate heading into the second leg of the Coppa Italia semifinals.

I know, I know. I can’t believe it, either.

But’s true. It really is true. I know this because not only did I watch it with my own two eyes — even though those same eyes are not as strong as they once were! — and then we wrote about it on this very site multiple times. That means it happened! It really, really did!

But basically all around that win over Lazio three weeks ago has been ... yeah, crap.

So, much in the same fashion as when Juve headed into the first leg of this Coppa Italia semifinal, Juventus are far from a team firing on all cylinders. Hell, even a couple of cylinders that would at least give you a decent amount of hope. Instead, Juventus’ form between the first 90 minutes of the semifinal and Tuesday night’s second leg has been basically the same old song and dance that we’ve seen in February, March and now April. That means Allegri’s men will have to prevent more of the same from taking place if they want to ensure they’re going to be playing for the Coppa Italia against either Fiorentina or Atalanta next month.

So what does that all mean?

Well, you get the impression that Juve’s current for equates to a whole lot of sitting back and maybe even trying to hit Lazio on the counterattack when the second leg gets underway at the Stadio Olimpico. That’s just the natural line of thinking, with Juventus actually playing any other way set to serve up a pretty surprising kind of reaction to any involved. That’s just the thing you think first and foremost when Allegri is your team’s manager and they’re rolling into Rome looking to protect a two-goal aggregate lead.

But, the good thing is that Juve do have the 2-0 lead as compared to it being all square or — gasp! — even trailing Lazio and having to go to Rome looking to reverse the aggregate scoreline back in their favor.

In the three weeks since we last saw, Lazio have won two of their three games that they have played, the lone exception being the always-fiery and interesting Derby della Capitale. Following that loss to Roma, they have done what Juve haven’t done for much of the last three months — beat a pair of teams, Salernitana and Genoa, that they should be beating.

Coming into Tuesday night, the two main things to look out for will be:

Just how much progress Lazio have made under Igor Tudor since they last played Juventus. How will Juve be able to handle the pressure that everybody knows they will be under from the get-go until the final whistle sounds.

Allegri and Juventus have some room for error, sure, but just how much rope Lazio is able to take early on might as well give us a pretty good sense of how things go in the second leg of this Coppa Italia semifinal.

But for weeks now we’ve heard from Allegri and the players that playing in the Coppa final is the only real goal they have outside of finishing in the top four. Well, they are 90 minutes away from getting one of their seasonal goals out of the way and, somehow, having the chance to win a trophy in a few weeks.

With how this season has turned for the absolute worst after things were going pretty well in terms of where they were in the table and how they were playing come late-January, being one of the two final teams standing in the Coppa Italia would feel like a rather big accomplishment. That’s probably because good things haven’t really been Juventus’ cup of tea over these last three months. That’s not news.

The only thing Juve need to actually do now is not see that 2-0 aggregate lead disappear at the Stadio Olimpico. Unfortunately, with the way they’re playing, the confidence of them holding onto that advantage isn’t exactly the highest ... or anything close to it.

TEAM NEWS While the two midfielders who have been suspended for much of the 2023-24 season, we are now officially less than a month away from seeing Nicolo Fagioli’s gambling suspension end. We have yet to hear whether he will take part in Juve’s season finale, but the fact that we haven’t heard much of anything outside of the fact that he’s been going to treatment and doing everything else required of him when it comes to his plea deal seems like a good sign. Moise Kean trained separately from the group Sunday and Monday and will not be fit enough to take part in the trip to Rome. Mattia De Sciglio has also not been called up to Tuesday’s matchup against Lazio. The same does not apply for Fabio Miretti, who is back in the squad after missing the weekend trip to Sardinia. Miretti last appeared in a game in the March 30 loss to Lazio. Wojciech Szczesny won’t have to worry about going with a mask or no mask this time out since Mattia Perin will be back between the sticks as per the norm in the Coppa Italia. In case you haven’t heard yet, Allegri reiterated Juventus’ two main goals for the season during his pre-match press conference: the Coppa Italia and finishing in the top four. JUVENTUS PLAYER TO WATCH

When you’re protecting a two-goal advantage on aggregate, it’s pretty easy to figure out how Allegri is probably going to set things up tactically.

That means defending. And doing a whole lot of it.

That means your best defender is going to have to play like it.

Photo by Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images

I think it’s safe to say that Bremer is going to be incredibly important to Juventus’ success both on the night against Lazio and when it comes to their advancement in the Coppa Italia. That is like saying that a couple of slices of good bread is a crucial piece of the puzzle when you want to make a sandwich for lunch. You need it to be there for the rest of the good things to potentially happen.

So let’s hope that Bremer is the best version of Pão de Queijo — yep, totally knew that off the top of my head and didn’t look it up on Google or anything like that — against Lazio.

The thing that lands Bremer on here rather than, say, one of Juventus’ players who are most certainly out of form like Manuel Locatelli or Adrien Rabiot, is the simple fact that he’s coming off a pretty rough game against a team that is very much not at Lazio’s level. Yet, despite the low bar of opposition Bremer faced last Friday, it was probably one of the worsr games he’s played this season. (Which, says something about how good he’s been as well as how he’s been able to bounce back from the few bad outings he’s had.)

Whether it’s against Ciro Immobile or Taty Castellanos, this will be a night in which Bremer will need to lead the defensive line and try to ensure Juventus advances to the Coppa Italia final.

So, it’s time to get those broad shoulders ready. Because we’re going to need them — a lot.

MATCH INFO

When: Tuesday, April 23, 2024.

Where: Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy.

Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. in Italy and the Central European time zone, 8 p.m. in the United Kingdom, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.

Television: Premier Sports 1 (United Kingdom); Canale 5 (Italy).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); fuboTV Canada (Canada); Premier Sports Player (United Kingdom); Mediaset Infinity (Italy).

Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.