Football Bet of the Day: 11/2 says Old Lady shines on opening night

After Saturday’s sensation of a Cremonese win away to AC Milan, Serie A’s opening weekend continues apace on Sunday and Juventus’ clash with Parma is the main feature.

The Bianconeri welcome the Gialloblu to Allianz Stadium (20:45 local, 19:45 BST, live on DAZN) with the need to bounce back from a fairly ignominious 2024/25 season at the front of their minds. Read on for our Football Bet of the Day for Sunday.

Juventus vs Parma Odds

You’ll very rarely find anything other than Juve favouritism when they’re lining up at home against one of the league’s provincial clubs. And that’s what we have here, with the Old Lady priced at 2/5 to win on opening night at an implied probability of 71.4%.

Parma are a 7/1 long shot, with 18/5 available for a draw.

Having turned in a fairly forgettable display at the Fifa Club World Cup, exiting to Real Madrid in the round of 16 following a 5-2 group hammering at the hands of Manchester City, Igor Tudor and Juve will have gone to work over the break, building some structure around their end-of-season form.

Following Tudor’s promotion to replace Thiago Motta in March, the Bianconeri were a more consistent side for the run-in and pipped Roma to a top-four spot with their 3-2 win at Venezia on the final day of the campaign.

But a club which drew 13 of its first 20 fixtures last term needs to get off to a far more convincing start in 2025/26.

Parma, on the other hand, caused a stir in the summer with the appointment of 29-year-old Carlos Cuesta as head coach to replace Cristian Chivu, who left the club for Inter.

Now 30, Mikel Arteta’s former assistant coach at Arsenal has been tasked with extrapolating the belligerent form under Chivu in the last three months of 24/25 over a full campaign.

This is not the first time in recent memory that these two teams have opened up the Serie A season in opposition. Indeed, Parma were the visitors when Juve opened the Allianz Stadium back in September 2011.

That 4-1 win for the Old Lady set a trend. Twelve months later they were 2-0 victors against the same opponents and in 2019 a Giorgio Chiellini goal separated the pair at the Tardini.

So it would be nothing new for Juve to get off the mark with three points against Parma, although the caveat for that is that they went on to win the Scudetto in all three of those seasons. This time around, they are far from favoured to finish atop the standings.

That said, Tudor’s side will be looking to set an early marker after adding Jonathan David to their attack after a successful spell with Lille in Ligue 1.

The addition of Joao Mario from Porto could be a big move for the home side, while the loans of Michele Di Gregorio and Lloyd Kelly have become permanent to help give them a more settled outlook at the back.

First up against Parma I can see the home side getting over the top, with Cuesta’s real work to be done in picking up key wins against similar-sized clubs.

As such, I’m happy to back the Bianconeri to get through this one unblemished at the back. The 11/2 quoted for a 2-0 Juve win has my eyes lighting up. That 15.4% implied probability is on the low side for me.

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