Carlos Tevez marked his Juventus debut with a goal as the Serie A champions thrashed Lazio 4-0 in the Italian Super Cup on Sunday.
Tevez, who ended his controversial stay at Manchester City in the close season, scored the fourth and final goal of the game in the 56th minute.
The Argentine international side-footed in a close-range rebound after Swiss star Stephan Lichtsteiner and French youngster Paul Pogba had both been denied in quick succession by Lazio goalkeeper Federico Marchetti.
Tevez came close to a second goal in the dying minutes but his spectacular volley went over the bar.
His link-up play with Montenegrin striker partner Mirko Vucinic would also have given Juventus coach Antonio Conte great cause for optimism ahead of the new league season which starts next weekend. “I knew we’d face this match in the right way. It is one game,” said Conte. “We continue to write history, these players put in a great performance and it was a deserved victory. “Don’t forget we only lost one match in 90 minutes, against LA Galaxy (in a pre-season friendly in the United States. We know that we still have to shake off the heavy pre-season training work, but we deserved the win and I’m very happy.”
Lazio coach Vladimir Petkovic apologised to his team’s fans and said his Italian Cup winners had been naive by conceding three second-half goals in the space of six minutes. “It was a black-out. We have to get our feet back on the ground. We tried to do that after winning the Italian Cup final and must do it again now. “We were perhaps a little too confident against a great Juve side when we weren’t 100 per cent fit.”
Pogba put Juve ahead in the 23rd minute, just three minutes after coming on to replace the injured Claudio Marchisio who had hurt his knee.
Andrea Pirlo’s free-kick landed comfortably for Lichtsteiner whose cross landed in the path of Pogba to score from 12 metres.
Defenders Giorgio Chiellini, in the 52nd minute, and the impressive Lichtsteiner, two minutes later, added to the Juve total before Tevez’s strike
