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Juventus needed a draw in the 79th minute from Cristiano Ronaldo to salvage a 2-2 draw in the Turin derby against relegation battling Torino on Saturday, leaving the champions’ Serie A title defense in shambles.
The pressure was on Andrea Pirlo’s side to produce a convincing performance after suffering a 1-0 loss to lowly Benevento before the international break, and they started strong when Federico Chiesa scored in the 13th minute.
But striker Antonio Sanabria soon topped the Torino level, before holding on to a sloppy backward pass from Dejan Kulusevski to shoot his side forward in the first minute of the second half.
Ronaldo headed from close range to equalize, but was flagged for offside, before a VAR review overturned the decision and allowed the goal.
“It is a very important point for us and the situation we were going through. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to take all three points home, but I think we have to be happy with our performance, ” Sanabria told DAZN.
Juve fell to fourth place with 56 points, tied with Napoli for fifth, which they face on Wednesday, and nine behind leader Inter, who will play Bologna later on Saturday.
Torino advanced to 24 points, two from the relegation zone in 17th place.
The stakes were high for both sides heading into the game, with Torino desperately battling the knockdown and Pirlo facing mounting pressure following the loss to Benevento.
Pirlo was not helped by American midfielder Weston McKennie who broke national blocking rules by hosting a dinner with his teammates Arthur Melo and Paulo Dybala during the week, and all three were out as punishment.
Juve got off to a strong start and Chiesa fired a low shot between Salvatore Sirigu’s legs from a tight angle to put them in front, but Torino equalized in the 27th minute when Wojciech Szczesny parried a shot in Sanabria’s way for a shot from easy head.
The Paraguayan international scored his second 13 seconds into the restart as he anticipated Kulusevski’s pass, ran into the area and beat Szczesny at his near post.
Sirigu brilliantly denied Ronaldo with a finger stop, but was unable to do anything with the close-range header from the Portuguese forward, which finally came after the VAR consultation.
Torino had Sirigu again to thank when he hit a shot from Rodrigo Bentancur to the post, while Szczesny corrected his earlier mistakes by producing good saves to negate the efforts of Sanabria and Daniele Baselli in the end.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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