Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 23rd goal of the season and his third this week as clinical Juventus leapfrogged Roma into third with victory over Paulo Fonseca’s side, Eurosport reports.
A day removed from celebrating his 36th birthday, the Portuguese continues to belie his age with another supreme performance. He opened the scoring to give Juve the lead in the 13th-minute with a precision left-footed strike from the edge of the box, and a short while later was denied a first-half brace by the crossbar.
Roma enjoyed the lion’s share of possession in the opening 45 minutes, and although Juve had to absorb a lot of pressure, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny didn’t have a save to make.
It was more of the same from the visitors after the restart, although the introduction of out-of-favour striker Edin Dzeko gave Roma more impetus, without reward.
And with 20 minutes remaining, Juventus sealed the points. Substitute Dejan Kulusevski raced down the right and rolled a ball across the face of goal, searching for Ronaldo but inadvertently bundled over the line by defender Roger Ibanez for an unfortunate own-goal.
Juventus, clicking into gear as the business end of the season approaches, climb above Roma into third, closing the gap on leaders Inter to five points having played a game less.