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Cristiano Ronaldo was surprisingly left on the bench as Juventus secured a comfortable 4-1 victory over Bologna to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season.
Juventus needed to win and were hoping for either Napoli or AC Milan to drop points on the final day of the Serie A season. While AC Milan won 2-0 against Atalanta, Napoli were held to a 1-1 draw by Verona which saw the Partenopei drop out of the top 4.
Juventus started the match on the front foot as Federico Chiesa gave them the lead in the 6th minute with a clinical finish. Alvaro Morata, who replaced Cristiano Ronaldo in the starting lineup, showed his class as he soon added to Chiesa's goal to double Juventus' lead.
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The Bianconeri put the match beyond any doubt when Frenchman Adrien Rabiot made it 3-0 on the stroke of half-time after some lovely play from Dejan Kulusevski.
Morata added further gloss to the scoreline immediately after the restart to make it 4-0 to Juventus in the 47th minute. Bologna scored a consolation goal in the 85th minute, but Juventus secured victory comfortably to book their place in the UEFA Champions League next season.
Cristiano Ronaldo remained on the bench throughout the night as Juventus managed to put in a dominant performance without their talisman. Speaking after the match to DAZN, Andrea Pirlo talked up his chances of managing Juventus next season:
“I never had fear. It took me a while to create that routine for the training sessions. It took some time to make the lads understand what I wanted, it was not easy to step in with so many champions, but everyone has helped me.
“I’ve improved, it was a complicated season, but it was useful for my development.
“We are on the right path as long as we help each other and run all together for the target. We lacked all these things many times this season.
"In the end, we achieved the result [of Champions League qualification]. If we start again together next season, we’ll have a solid base."
Speaking about Cristiano Ronaldo's omission from the starting XI, Andrea Pirlo said:
“It was a shared decision, Cristiano Ronaldo was tired after Wednesday’s game, so I decided to start Morata, another great player. Ronaldo was available, I have a deep squad, and I can pick many different players.”
Cristiano Ronaldo's future has been subject to intense speculation and it will be interesting to see where the Juventus superstar will be playing next season.
Without further ado, let us take a look at the:
Best Tweets from Bologna 1-4 Juventus
Cristiano Ronaldo finished as the top scorer in the Serie A this season
