Serie A | Cremonese 1-2 Juventus: Experimental Spalletti win on debut

Luciano Spalletti surprised with tactical experiments on his Juventus debut, but it proved effective with a 2-1 victory away to Jamie Vardy’s Cremonese decided by Filip Kostic and Andrea Cambiaso.

The Bianconeri sacked Igor Tudor on Monday and beat Udinese 3-1 on Wednesday under caretaker manager Massimo Brambilla, ending their eight-match winless streak in all competition and four games without scoring. Spalletti was appointed on Thursday and made his debut 48 hours later, but couldn’t count on injured Kenan Yildiz, Lloyd Kelly, Gleison Bremer, Juan Cabal, Arek Milik and Carlo Pinsoglio. After just one training session, he transformed them with Teun Koopmeiners in the centre of a three-man defence. The hosts were unbeaten in three and coming off a midweek 2-0 victory away to Genoa, which put them in eighth place. Antonio Sanabria, Giuseppe Pezzella, Alessio Zerbin, Alberto Grassi, Michele Collocolo and Faris Moumbagna were unavailable.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

It took just 85 seconds to get the first goal of the Spalletti era, as Lois Openda’s back-heel flick was meant to be for Dusan Vlahovic, who was surrounded by defenders, but the lucky ricochet off Jari Vandeputte found Kostic undisturbed to sweep home at the back post. It was the perfect way to celebrate his 33rd birthday, with his first Serie A goal since March 2023 against Inter.

Vlahovic surged forward and stung Emil Audero’s gloves from a tricky angle, but it was nearly 2-0 on 26 minutes when Manuel Locatelli’s daisy-cutter from the edge of the area was palmed into the base of the far post.

Another Vlahovic snapshot tested Audero, while Martin Payero was already heading to ground before the Federico Gatti challenge inside the penalty area.

Openda hit the side-netting from a tight angle and drilled just wide of the near post, while Locatelli blasted over from the edge of the area.

Cremonese stepped up the pressure after the restart with a series of corners, and Michele Di Gregorio made a tricky save on the Jari Vandeputte scorcher, but it wouldn’t have counted as Jamie Vardy pulled it out of play in the build-up.

Tommaso Barbieri’s effort was deflected over and he then had penalty appeals rejected for a slight Kostic nudge in the back. Filippo Terracciano cleared a Kostic attempt off the line, but Vlahovic had already fouled Audero.

Vlahovic was at full stretch and could only graze the attempted tap-in on a smart Weston McKennie roll across from the left.

Just as Cremonese were pushing hard for the equaliser, Juventus doubled their lead. Francisco Conceicao pulled back from the right by-line, Federico Baschirotto prevented Vlahovic from tapping in, but only pushed it back to Cambiaso to blast in off the underside of the bar from 12 yards, despite the Audero save.

However, it wasn’t over, as Dennis Johnsen pumped a long ball over the top, Vardy won the physical tussle with Federico Gatti and surged forward to beat Di Gregorio with an angled drive into the far bottom corner to set up the tense finale.

Kostic 2 (J), Cambiaso 68 (J), Vardy 83 (C)