Juventus 1 – Benfica 1: Initial Reaction and Random Observations

The beautiful thing is that it is late July and that Juventus is playing a game that means absolutely nothing, it is that we can say that it is 39, is the middle of summer and move on to the next.

"Juventus play as if they had barely played a match for two months – huh! We are in July!"

For about the first half of Saturday afternoon's match against Benfica at Red Bull Arena New Jersey, it's pretty much what I felt about what I was watching. Juve looked exactly like what she is right now – a team with a few weeks of pre-season training and without some of their biggest stars because of World Cup obligations and vacations.

Then came Luca Clemenza. And in addition to Godfather jokes, the boy scored a heck of a goal that was the climax of a much better 45 minutes than the opening of 45.

Juventus win 4-2 on penalties? Well, probably not much outside of a possible morale boost that this trip to the United States is not a total waste. (And just in case you're wondering, there is technically a table for the International Champions Cup, which is just funny enough to think.)

It's just the thing with friendly matches this time of year that you must force yourself not to be so high or so low about what is really happening on the pitch. (No matter what the talking heads tell you during the game.)

Benfica leads Juventus in their pre-season preparations. They have a qualifying match for the Champions League that will last about ten days, which means that they know that they have to start moving things forward if they want to have the chance to make part of European football.

Juventus, meanwhile, still has two friendlies in the United States to go play without all its offensive options, not Federico Bernardeschi. From the standpoint of an outsider, it seems that Max Allegri 's first goal is the fitness of his players at this time of year – and that' s how it should be.

Positive results in the win-loss column are good. It will be more exciting than others, which is to be expected.

But hey, no matter what you think of the tour up here, we can now say this: Juve is unbeaten when Luca Clemenza scores a nice second-half of the goal at Red Bull Arena

It's something you could not say yesterday

THOUGHTS AND ROUNDS AND OBSERVATIONS

• During the broadcast of this game, I heard a lot of different ways to say Juventus. Who knew …
• ESPN's part-time coverage involved guys spitting at each other and shooting about the season Mo Salah was going to have. I've been listening to Juventus, but you would not have known if you started watching at halftime.
• The three goals of Juventus in the International Champions Cup were scored by Andrea Favilli and Luca Clemenza. Who knows what the future holds for two of these types and their professional careers, but we talk about it more now than we were a week ago
• WHO NEED RONALDO WHEN YOU FISHED AND CLEMENZA [19659017] (I have something else to say in capital letters, rest assured.)
• DID YOU KNOW THE GUYES THAT WE GAVE DANIELE RUGANI AND MATTIA CALDARA PLAYING TOGETHER IN THE CENTER OF THE DEFENSE OF JUVE AGAINST BENFICA
• Do not get angry, Juventus. Now that we have seen it once, I want another, oh, 400 more times over the next decade …
• Friendly, of course, but Joao Cancelo seemed rather well until here. I also like that Allegri also plays it on the field, because it's the pre-season friendly season and it's something you can do when the games do not really mean nothing but improve your fitness.
• Sami Khedira did not play in Wednesday's match against Bayern Munich. Even though he was in the lineup starting against Benfica, you would have thought it was the same thing four days later.
• Today was the first appearance of Wojciech Szczesny in a post-Gigi Buffon world. Some people have mentioned me on Twitter during the game, and this is something that will get used to: See someone else that Buffon wearing the # 1 jersey is a bit weird. Woj was not offended, but I hoped that they put it at least a year as a last honor for San Gigi. (Or maybe Buffon was totally in agreement with him, who knows, he's number 30 with PSG, so it might be as weird to see this season.)
• The next match of the Juventus will be against the MLS All-Star team. We meet our old friends Sebastian Giovinco and Zlatan Ibrahimovic again! I hope that Claudio Marchisio will give Seba a big hug, because to see these two Turinese on the same ground will be cool.