16 August 2021
With three games and four goals, Sami Khedira is the joint-top goalscorer of Udinese-Juventus, together with Alessandro Del Piero. In Friuli Khedira has played in many different colours of the Juventus shirt - in yellow, pink and blue - that has seen him win every time he has scored a goal.
A PHENOMENAL FIRST HALF
2015-16: if Udinese had accomplished a historic feat by winning in Turin on Matchday one, Juve responded by starting the second round with a gigantic show of strength, resulting in four goals in the first half of the game. Khedira scored the goal to make it 2-0 with a comfortable header into an empty net from a Paulo Dybala assist. Just 18 minutes have passed and the match is already well in Juve's favour.
CLOSE TO A SECOND
The one at the Dacia Arena is Sami's third goal in Serie A, and the German midfielder - just minutes from half-time - comes close to scoring his first double in Serie A with a shot from the right that finds Orestis Karnezis ready to respond. Even in the second half there is still an opportunity to widen the result but Khedira plays too unselfishly by trying to find Mario Mandzukic instead of going for goal, the host's defence manages to recover.
DRAW IN BLUE
The following season, 2016/17's Udinese-Juventus ends 1-1 and this time Sami is not among the protagonists of the game. After seven-consecutive victories, inaugurated by the turning point of Massimiliano Allegri to switch the team's formation to a 4-2-3-1 and hinges the midfield on the Khedira-Pjanic axis in front of the defence, the team suffers a bit of mental fatigue. There is no lack of the usual application by the German, but the overall team performance is less effective than usual and a draw is the logical consequence.
THE 9/10 PERFORMANCE
The first hat-trick in Serie A for Sami, an event that Udinese-Juventus had been missing since 1951-52 when the Bianconeri from Turin won 7-2 and the centre-forward, Pasquale Vivolo hit the target three times. Also in this case, in 2017-18, the score was an extravagant 6-2 win in favour of the Old Lady. The result made even more astonishing, taking into account that at the beginning of the second half, the two teams were locked at 2-2 and Juve were outnumbered by the sending off of Mandzukic. With Italian sports papers notoriously strict with player match-ratings, Khedira does well to receive a 9/10 for his decisive performance in the Monday newspapers.
TAKING THE BALL HOME
As tradition dictates, a player who scores a hat-trick takes home the match ball, signed by all of his teammates and Sami did just that after having put the ball past Udinese keeper, Albano Bizzarri. Khedira's goals are all very different, further demonstrating his decisiveness. The first goal, that of the partial 2-1 advantage, is a header from a Juan Cuadrado cross. The Juventus number 6 then puts Juve back in front at 3-2 with a goal from a free kick by Dybala, on which he takes advantage of Daniele Rugani's play, and then finally comes up with a his third goal to make it 5-2, putting in a diagonal placement of considerable power.
