Cristiano Ronaldo marked his 100th game for Juventus with a pair of penalties in a 3-1 success over Genoa on Sunday, as the champions closed the gap on Serie A leaders AC Milan.
Paulo Dybala got his first league goal of the season in the 57th minute and Ronaldo sealed the points with two late strikes from the spot after Stefano Sturaro had levelled for the hosts after an hour.
The Portuguese forward’s strikes have taken him level with AC Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimovic as the leading scorer in Serie A with 10 goals.
“What better way to celebrate my 100th game for Juventus, than scoring two more goals for the team?” Ronaldo said on Twitter before vowing to reach 100 goals for the reigning champions.
Champions Juventus move up to fourth in the table, equal on points with third-placed Napoli, after just their second league win away from home this season.
Both Juventus and Napoli are three points behind AC Milan who host Parma later on Sunday.
“Dybala needed this goal to unlock mentally and physically,” said coach Andrea Pirlo.
“We were expecting it, he returned to scoring and now we expect even more.”
Inter Milan reclaimed the second spot, two points behind Milan, with a 3-1 comeback win at Cagliari while Napoli is a further point adrift after beating Sampdoria 2-1.
All matches in Italy this weekend were preceded by a minute’s silence in memory of Italy’s 1982 World Cup winner Paolo Rossi, who died on Wednesday, aged 64.
Juventus, 3-0 winners at Barcelona in the Champions League during the week, came out firing with Adrien Rabiot having a goal disallowed after two minutes.
After a frustrating first half Juventus broke through with US midfielder Weston McKennie setting up Dybala for the opener.
Nicolo Rovella’s foul on Juan Cuadrado allowed Ronaldo slot in his first after 78 minutes with the second coming a minute from time after Perin brought down Alvaro Morata.
Genoa sinks to second from bottom of the league after their worst ever start to a season with just six points from 11 games.
(AFP)
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