KopiHomeTHE OLD LADY OF ITALIAN FOOTBALL FALLS AT HOME
26.02.2003 Previous Page Next Page
Juventus fell to an uncharacteristic loss at home to Alex Ferguson's Red Devils in a Champions League 2nd phase match. Ryan Giggs was on the bench but he was soon called up as a substitute when Diego Forlan damaged his ankle ligaments from a Ciro Ferrara crashed challenge.
The Welsh winger showed almost instantly what makes Inter Milan declared their intention to bid for him this summer. Gianluca Zambrotta was unlucky when he tripped on the ball inside his own penalty area, allowed Juan Sebastian Veron to sweep a neat square pass across the goal. Giggs was at the end of that pass and made no mistake from seven-yard out after just 15 minutes.
At the 41st minute, Giggs intercepted a poor Antonio Conte pass in Juventus' half and he sped past the whole Juventus' defence to stroke a inch-perfect shot into the corner of Gianluigi Buffon's goal.
After the break at half time, Juventus brought on Igor Tudor and Marcelo Salas to replace Conte and a mostly ineffective Marco Di Vaio in an attempt to level the match.
Whatever effort Juventus garnered in trying to reduce the deficit at 0 - 2, it was oblivious. Juventus was finding it hard to bypass the impregnable walls set up by Man U in the midfield and their defence.
Juventus' substitute Tudor committed defensive suicide when he tried to chest Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's cross back to Buffon. But to his horror, it was deflected onto a post and Ruud van Nistelrooy was first to the rebound and slot it home gleefully to maintain a remarkable European scoring record of 23 goals in 22 games.
After Man U's 3rd goal of the night, they were content to just stroke the ball around for Juventus' players to chase.
Juventus' defensive mistakes had caused them to concede 3 goals to a merciless Man U. In front of the home fans, Juventus had showed a lack of inventiveness and urgency to take the match to Man U. Instead they allowed Man U to dominate the match and capitalized on some sloppy defending. It was a showcase of the best from England and Italy which the Italians came off second.
Soaring Magpies
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