TURIN, (Reuters) – Cristiano Ronaldo notched his 600th appearance in the league with his 20th Serie A goal of the season as Juventus beat Spezia 3-0 yesterday to move within three points of second-placed AC Milan.
The Portuguese led in his side’s third goal late after Alvaro Morata and Federico Chiesa struck earlier in the second half to put Andrea Pirlo’s side in a dominant position.
Ronaldo, who also hit the post with an effort in the first half, is the first player to score at least 20 goals in each of the last 12 seasons in Europe’s top five leagues.
The win leaves Juve in third place with 49 points from 24 games behind Milan on 52 and Inter’s leaders with 56, both in action this week against Udinese and Parma respectively.
The gap still leaves Juventus with work to do in their bid for a 10th league title in a row.
“If we don’t win it at the end of the season we will congratulate the winners, but we must die on the pitch first, until we are told there are no more points left to play for,” Morata told Sky Italia.
“That’s what we have to do, as long as we have a mathematical chance, we’ll fight until the end.”
DOUBLE INTRODUCTION
Pirlo Juve’s side slipped with a draw in the middle of the Hellas Verona table on Saturday and knew they couldn’t afford any more mistakes after falling 10 points behind league leaders Inter.
But they lost defender Matthijs De Ligt to injury in the warm-up and struggled in the opening period, coming closest when Ronaldo dribbled into the box and curled a shot off the foot of the post.
Morata and Federico Bernardeschi’s double submission with half an hour remaining proved decisive, as the winger teased the Spanish striker to score his first league goal since December within 60 seconds of coming on.
“Morata is a fundamental player for us; he has a lot of quality, he knows how to work with the team, how to attack space and score goals, ”said Pirlo.
“He’s the player we wanted. Unfortunately it has been missing recently but now we hope it can reach its best quickly. ”
Bernardeschi was involved again as he found Chiesa in the box for Juve’s second goal, with the latter scoring on the rebound after his initial effort was marred by Ivan Provedel.
Ronaldo then broke up the pitch and scored with a composed finish in the 89th minute to seal the win, though Spezia squandered the opportunity for a consolation goal when Wojciech Szczesny saved Andrey Galabinov’s penalty kick with the final kick of the game.