Ronaldo back with a bang for Juventus

 

Cristiano Ronaldo came off the bench to score a brace on his return from coronavirus as Juventus returned to winning ways in Serie A with a 4-1 victory against promoted Spezia on Sunday.

The champions ended a run of three consecutive draws to move third in Serie A, four points behind leaders AC Milan, who beat Udinese 2-1 earlier in the day thanks to a spectacular late winner from Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Ronaldo, 35, replaced Paulo Dybala in the 56th minute with the match level after Tommaso Pobega had cancelled out Alvaro Morata’s opener for Juventus.

But the Portuguese striker put Juve in front just three minutes later.

Adrien Rabiot grabbed a third on 68 minutes, with Ronaldo scoring a second from the penalty spot with 15 minutes to go for his fifth goal in three league games this season.

“Cristiano is back. This is the important thing,” said Ronaldo, who had been furious at missing Juventus’ Champions League 2-0 defeat in midweek by Lionel Messi’s Barcelona.

“I was stopped for a long time even though I had no symptoms and felt good. Today I got back to doing what I like, playing football.”

Ronaldo had been Covid-positive for 19 days after a test while on national duty with Portugal, missing four games.

Earlier, AC Milan extended their unbeaten streak as Ibrahimovic scored an acrobatic late winner to seal a win over lowly Udinese.

The 39-year-old has scored seven goals in four league games having missed the other two after contracting Covid-19.

In Naples, a Manuel Locatelli penalty just before the hour mark and a late Maxime Lopez goal gave Sassuolo a first win over Napoli in five years.

Roma are seventh after a 2-0 win at home against Fiorentina with Leonardo Spinazzola and Pedro Rodriguez scoring in either half.

City rivals Lazio fought back to beat struggling Torino 4-3 despite trailing four minutes into injury time in Turin – courtesy of late strikes from Ciro Immobile and Felipe Caicedo.