Frustrated Juve Suffer First-Leg Loss In UCL
18 February, 2021
UEFA Champions League
Result: FC Porto 2-1 Juventus
Date: 17 February 2021
Venue: Estádio do Dragão
Serie A giants Juventus suffered a good 2-1 defeat to FC Porto found in the initial leg of their UEFA Champions League last 16 tie in Wednesday night.
Andrea Pirlo made one differ from the weekend's 1-0 loss to Napoli as the under-fire Alvaro Morata was replaced by Dejan Kulusevski in the attach.
It was the house area who broke the deadlock on inside first minute seeing that Mehdi Taremi pounced on Rodrigo Bentancur's poor pass before firing history Wojciech Szczesny.
The visitors seemed rattled by the early goal, as Pepe went close to doubling the lead with a header on 19 mins before Sergio Oliveira saw his long-range sail inches wide of the tag minutes later.
It got worse for Pirlo, who was simply forced right into a first-half switch as Giorgio Chielleni found a calf harm and was replaced by Merih Demiral found in the final eight a few minutes of the stanza.
The second half started out in similar fashion to the first, with Porto doubling their lead one minute after restart through Moussa Marega, who got past Matthijs De Ligt and Demiral to rifle beyond Szczesny.
Juventus started creating openings following the hour mark, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Federico Chiesa forcing Porto goalkeeper Agustin Marchesin into saves
Chiesa had not been to get denied on 82 a few minutes when the Italian got on the end of Adrien Rabiot's cross and found the bottom corner with a neat finish for a vital away goal.
The visitors were not able to join up another goal, but Chiesa's strike can make Pirlo feel better heading to the next leg in Turin.
Source: www.soccerladuma.co.za