Juventus vs. Fiorentina: 5 Lessons Learned from Saturday's Big 5-0 Win

At last, Juventus' curse has been lifted.

After four consecutive draws and six draws in their last seven games, Juventus were able to get back to winning with an emphatic 5-0 victory over Fiorentina, one of their rivals in Italian football.

The victory was Juventus' biggest of the season, and it involved five different scorers, illustrating the quality available throughout the Bianconeri squad.

How were Juventus able to break out of their slump to put on their best performance of the season? And what did we learn about the team in the process?

Read ahead to find out.

Mirko Vucinic May Be Inconsistent, but He's Juve's Best Striker

Mirko Vucinic is the definition of inconsistency.

When Vucinic is off-form, he is badly off-form. In fact, there are a number of "horror miss" compilations on YouTube, such as this one, that illustrate just how bad Vucinic can be when he isn't playing well.

But when he's on-form, Vucunic is a huge difference-maker, as he was against Fiorentina.

Against the Viola, Vucinic opened the scoring with an excellent shot from outside the box, then proceeded to setup Juventus' next three goals in a top-class performance for the Montenegran. 

First, he held the ball up well from a corner and then passed the ball into space for Arturo Vidal to score after drawing Fiorentina's defenders away from him.

Then, he timed his cross to perfection to meet Claudio Marchisio's head for a header and finished off his hat trick of assists with a well-timed through pass that Andrea Pirlo was able to lift over the goalkeeper.

Juventus have a bunch of strikers, but none of them come close to the quality of Vucinic. Despite the rout, Alessandro Matri did not get on the scoresheet and did not look dangerous in his hour on the pitch. Fabio Quagliarella has not strongly impressed this season either.

As expected, Marco Borriello has proven to be an incompetent transfer acquisition for Juve, while Del Piero has been limited to mostly cameo appearances at his advanced age.

If Juventus do qualify for the Champions League next year, they will almost definitely need a more reliable center forward in their team than Matri, Quagliarella or Borriello. For now, though, even though he's not a center forward, Vucinic is the best striker Juve have got.

The Andrea Pirlo-Esque Midfielder Is a Dying Breed in Football

It seems that no one can do it the way Andrea Pirlo can anymore.

Against Fiorentina, Juventus faced up against the one Italian most pundits expected to be the next Andrea Pirlo just a year or two ago: Riccardo Montolivo.

Yet, once again, Montolivo showed us that such comparisons are pointless and that the gap between him and Pirlo, even as Pirlo nears the end of his career and is far removed from his prime, is very wide.

Admittedly, Montolivo wasn't afforded nearly as much freedom as Pirlo was after Alessio Cerci was sent off, but even before that, he hardly imposed his will on the game in any significant manner in the first 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, Pirlo bossed play throughout the game and contributed with a goal and a deflected assist.

Gianluigi Buffon: Back to Being the Best in the Business

Without Champions League football, many of Juventus' international fanbase has been deprived of the opportunity to watch Juventus play this season.

In the process, they've missed the rebirth of Gianluigi Buffon.

Buffon is the reason Juventus are still amazingly undefeated this season. So many times, he's bailed out Juventus with an incredible, world-class save, helping his team hold on for a draw or a tight victory.

Only once this season has Juventus conceded more than one goal with Buffon in goal: against Napoli in an exciting 3-3 draw.

Altogether, Buffon has 13 clean sheets this season and has conceded only 14 goals, giving him arguably the best goalkeeping record in professional football through 25 games.

Against Fiorentina, Buffon made a world-class save against Andrea Lazzari to keep Juventus' clean sheet against Fiorentina. Though he was a spectator for much of the game, he was in top-form when called upon, and he will be a huge asset for Juventus over the coming years.

Fiorentina Are in Serious Trouble

Fiorentina have now lost five of their last seven games and have regressed greatly from the Fiorentina team that qualified for the Champions League, topped its group and pushed Bayern Munich to the brink in the Round of 16 just two years ago.

The club's offense has been weakened greatly since then. Alberto Gilardino, one of Fiorentina's best strikers in recent years, was sold to Genoa, while Adrian Mutu was allowed to join Cesena in the summer.

The club's best midfielder, Riccardo Montolivo, has looked consistently average for much of this season, while many of the team's core players are on the wrong side of 30.

Not everything is doom and gloom, however, for Fiorentina, as Stefan Jovetic remains a great attacking midfielder-cum-striker, while Adem Ljajic has developed well with the club as well.

In the coming summer, Fiorentina will do well to start molding a new squad around these two stars of theirs. Otherwise, relegation, rather than European competition, could be on the horizon for the Viola.

Title Race Back On?

After four consecutive draws, and a number of good wins by AC Milan, I expected the Milan giants to have a sizable lead over Juve. Yet, as things stand, Milan are only four points ahead of Juve with 10 games to go.

Game on?

Maybe, but maybe not. Juve have a much harder schedule than AC Milan for the remainder of both teams' Serie A campaign.

Juventus will be taking on Internazionale next week, followed by Napoli the following week and Palermo the week after. Though two of these games will be played at home for Juve, they are not easy matches and I can't see Juve taking a full nine points from them.

On the other hand, after a home game against Roma, AC Milan take on Catania and an off-color Fiorentina. These three games are games which I can see AC Milan convincingly winning consecutively.

Juventus' schedule doesn't ease up from there. Their next game after Palermo is Lazio, followed by a match with Roma.

From there, Juve's schedule looks fairly easy, but by then, the title may already be wrapped up; after the Roma game, AC Milan's only opposition with considerable name recognition are inter-city rivals Inter Milan.

Otherwise, even though Catania and Bologna are in Serie A's top 10, it's unlikely they'll pose a major threat to Ibrahimovic and Co.'s title challenge.

Juventus will almost definitely keep things competitive, but with a much more favorable schedule, AC Milan are definite favorites to pick up their second consecutive Scudetto.