Juventus on Thursday secured a 1-0 win over Sporting CP in the Europa League quarter-final in Turin.
The Turin giant will take a goal advantage over Lisbon thanks to the heroic actions of Federico Gatti and Mattia Perin.
Despite securing a win ahead of the return leg, the result still left the game in the balance between both teams that dropped down from the Champions League group stage.
Sporting secured the ticket to the last eight after eliminating Arsenal on penalties, while Juventus clinically moved past Nantes in the return leg in France.
Max Allegri used a new all-attack trident that worked well. This showed when Angel Di Maria floated a cross-field ball for the excellent Chiesa first touch and strike stopped by Antonio Adan.
Wojciech Szczesny was called into action and answered with two tough saves in a few minutes. The Polish keeper’s first was a save from the acrobatic Sebastian Coates volley eight yards from goal. He then stopped Pedro Goncalves at the near post.
Gleison Bremer was on hand to rescue Juventus when the goalie was seemingly beaten with a block on Nuno Santos after a splendid run from Marcus Edwards and Hidemasa Morita drilled just wide.
As a safety precaution, Szczesny had to be removed when he struggled to breathe after colliding with the upright. Mattia Perin, who replaced him, was in tears after that scare.
After the restart, Perins stopped a Pedro Goncalves snapshot while Chiesa flashed a ball across the face of the goal from the left, and nobody got on the end.
Juventus eventually got the goal in a scrappy manner from the resulting corner. After Adan flapped at the resultant corner taken, Coates cleared Dusan Vlahovic’s shot off the line, but Gatti was there to bundle it over the line.
As Sporting searched for an equalizer, Morita’s diving header flashed just wide.
After Paul Pogba made an acrobatic defensive interception, Perin made a superb double save on the seemingly inevitable Pedro Goncalves tap-in and the Hector Bellerin follow-up in the stoppage time to ensure Juventus finished the game with a win.
Written by Oladipupo Mojeed
