Roma midfielder Daniele De Rossi was accused of racially abusing Juventus’s Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic in Sunday’s stormy 1-0 win for the Turin giants. A late Paulo Dybala strike secured a 1-0 win and an 11th consecutive league victory for Italian champions Juventus, who closed to within two points of Serie A leaders Napoli.
The bad-tempered affair in Turin got off to the worst possible start when Mandzukic crumbled to the ground in pain after a De Rossi stamp.
Internet reports claimed television cameras had caught De Rossi telling the Croatian: “Shut up, shitty gypsy.”
Roma coach Luciano Spalletti did not deny De Rossi’s comments. He claimed Mandzukic had insulted his players throughout the game and said De Rossi’s only mistake was not to cover his mouth with his hand, a technique used by many players and coaches to conceal what they are saying.  “He (De Rossi) didn’t put his hand up to his mouth, but I will tell him to do that next time,” Spalletti said, after seeing Roma slip to 12 points off the pace. “In difficult moments like that, certain manners can go amiss. But Mandzukic was taking the piss out of all the (Roma) players during the game.”
Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri tried to play down the incident. “I don’t know what De Rossi said to Mandzukic and I don’t know what Mandzukic said to De Rossi, but players regularly trade comments with each other during games,” said the Juve coach.
Juve had won their last four league meetings at home with Roma, scoring at least three goals on each occasion.  Dybala sent the stadium wild when he ran on to Paul Pogba’s short through ball to beat Wojciech Szczesny with a crisp angled strike.
Juve’s 14th win and 11th consecutively means they remain second but the champions have closed the gap on Napoli, 4-2 winners over Sampdoria earlier Sunday when striker Gonzalo Higuain hit his 21st goal in as many games, to two points.
“To win these type of games, you have to strike at the right moment,” said a smiling Juve coach, Massimiliano Allegri. “Paradoxially, in the opening half hour Dybala was nowhere to be seen. Then he was brilliant to score the winning goal for us in the closing stages.”
Roma remain fifth but are 12 points off the pace after what was Luciano Spalletti’s second game in charge following the sacking of Rudi Garcia two weeks ago. The Italian denied his team had come to stifle Juve’s game-winning strategy, but admitted: “Our priority is to get down to working a certain way. When we start playing and doing well, then we can start to talk about our objectives and (our position in) the league table.”
With Spalletti deploying a new 3-4-1-2 formation that saw Belgian midfielder Radja Nainggolan move up behind strikers Edin Dzeko and Mohamed Salah, Juve failed to score in the opening half of a league game for the first time since November when they put three, second-half goals past Palermo.