Udinese stun toothless Juve in Serie A
Juventus are seemingly out of the race for the Serie A title, as they sank to a shock 1-0 home defeat to Udinese.
A stoppage-time winner from Udinese helped them beat table-toppers Juventus 2-1 in Serie A on Thursday. The defeat delayed Juventus’ hope of winning the league as they will have to wait for their next outing against Sampdoria on July 27.
The Maurizio Sarri-managed team need three more points to secure their ninth straight Serie A title. Their fate could be also be decided by Sunday this week if their rivals Inter Milan, Atlanta and Lazio lose their next matches.
The Old Lady failed to hold on to their first-half lead which was given by Matthijs de Ligt. Udinese netted twice in the next half through Ilija Nestrovski and Seko Fofana to seal an unexpected victory at their home ground Dacia Arena.
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The match started with a clumsy header from Danilo, which had almost resulted in an own goal before the delivery bounced off Juventus keeper Wojciech Szczesny’s post.
At the other end, Juventus pushed hard for the breakthrough but failed to breach the determined backline of the hosts. Paulo Dybala, who was wearing the captain’s armband for the day, was denied by Udinese keeper Juan Musso.
13 minutes later, Cristiano Ronaldo tried to score the opener with a wide long ranger. It only in the 42nd minute that Juventus heaved a sigh of relief when de Ligt smashed past the Udinese gloveman to give his team the breakthrough.
However, the game turned out to be exactly opposite of what Sarri’s players had thought it to be in the second half. Udinese took a little less than seven minutes after the break to bring parity into the contest.
Nestorovski took advantage of an error committed by Alex Sandro before heading in the equaliser off a cross from on-loan Watford midfielder Ken Sema.
A desperate Juventus frontline tried hard to regain the lead but their stars failed to conspire in their favour. To worsen the matter, Ivorian international struck the winner for Udinese in the second minute of the stoppage and sent shock waves to the touring camp.
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