The Serie A champions came back to winning ways as they started 2021 on the right foot.
Cristiano Ronaldo put the hosts ahead inside 31 minutes before Federico Chiesa got the second goal four minutes after the break.
Ronaldo doubled Juventus’ advantage on the 70th minute mark with his 758th career goal. Marvin Zeegelaar got one back for the visitors during the dying embers of the game but Paulo Dybala restored Pirlo’s men’s three-goal cushion late in injury-time.
It was not a dominant performance from Juventus as the scoreline suggests. Udinese had an early goal controversially disallowed and hit the woodwork twice.
“It wasn’t the best Juventus, as we were coming off a bad defeat to Fiorentina, so started quite timid and nervous, especially when their forwards ran towards us. We gained more confidence as it went on,” Pirlo told DAZN.
“I was not satisfied with the initial approach to the game, as we were still feeling the fear of our last defeat to Fiorentina. The timing of the movements weren’t right, especially on the wings.
“We knew that Udinese would try to sit back, counter and wait for our mistakes, but we did well with the preventative marking to ensure they couldn’t do that.”
