Juventus vs Cagliari prediction 17.12.2024 | Coppa Italia

• Competition: Coppa Italia, 1/8 Finals
• Date: Tuesday, 17th December, 2024
• Kickoff: 20:00 UK / 21:00 CET
• Venue: Allianz Stadium (Turin)

On Tuesday evening, two Serie A teams, Juventus and Cagliari, will face off in the Coppa Italia 1/8 Finals at Allianz Stadium in Turin.

Juventus are one of the biggest clubs in Italy, but their recent seasons haven't been great. Since they won the Scudetto in the 2019/20 season, they were not even close to doing it again. Last year, they finished third but 23 points behind the eventual champs, Inter. This season, "The Old Lady" aren't doing well as they are sitting only in 6th place with 28 points from 16 matches. They are already 18 points away from the first place but three away from the 4th place and the Champions League spots. However, they played two more games than fourth-placed Fiorentina, so fourth place isn't as close as it seems at first glance. However, in the Champions League, Juve are doing fine and is on the right path to securing the second phase of the competition.

In the last several seasons, Cagliari were mostly among the worst teams in Serie A, even spending one season in Serie B in the 2022/23 season. This season, the situation is unchanged as they are only battling to survive somehow. Currently, they are in 16th place with 14 points in 16 rounds, which is around last year's level when they averaged 0.02 ppg fewer. They are just two points away from the danger zone and have played one game more than the 18th-placed Verona. Now, they will have a super challenging task in the Cup, and considering how poorly they played on the road in recent games, securing the ¼ Finals looks like an impossible task.

Juventus vs Cagliari pick: Juventus to win and cover the -1 AH spread

Juventus are on an 11-game unbeaten run right now. Still, during that run, they only managed to win three times. However, most of those games were against much better teams than Cagliari – Manchester City, Bologna, Aston Villa, AC Milan, Torino, Lille, Inter… So, we believe they are good enough to win this game at home against one of the weakest Serie A teams.

Meanwhile, Cagliari lost back-to-back games against Fiorentina and Atalanta. Away from home, they are really struggling, as they won just one point in the last four matches while failing to score on two occasions. So, we believe that even scoring against Juve will be a challenge.

These teams met just around two months ago, and even though it ended in a 1:1 draw, Juventus totally dominated the game and deserved much more. They had 74% ball possession, 12 more goal attempts, and much bigger xG stats (3.18 vs 1.55) but were unlucky.

Simply put, we believe that the difference in quality is too big, and considering all the above, anything but a comfortable win for Juventus would be a surprise for us.