Soccer-Juventus undergo extra frustration in draw with Nantes
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TURIN, Italy (Reuters) -Juventus’s disappointing season continued as they had been held to a 1-1 draw by Nantes within the dwelling leg of their Europa League playoff tie on Thursday.
Juventus picked up one win from six Champions League group matches to drop into the Europa League playoffs and after additionally being deducted 15 Serie A factors for monetary irregularities their followers have endured a depressing marketing campaign.
The playoff got here as welcome aid for the Turin giants in opposition to a facet mendacity thirteenth in French Ligue 1 and the hosts raced into an early lead when Serbian striker Dusan Vlahovic swept dwelling Federico Chiesa’s header throughout aim.
Chiesa was unlucky to not double his facet’s benefit early within the second half after his highly effective effort hit the underside of the crossbar, bounced on the aim line and got here out.
Nantes capitalised on that let-off, nevertheless, to attain a superb equaliser on the hour mark, Ludovic Blas slamming the ball into the web following a swift counter-attack.
The Nantes woodwork was once more rattled when Angel Di Maria’s nook evaded everybody and clipped the crossbar, however a winner eluded Juve on one other irritating night.
Report six-times Europa League winners Sevilla breezed previous PSV Eindhoven with a 3-0 dwelling win due to objectives by Youssef En Nesyri, Lucas Ocampos and Nemanja Gudelj.
Going via a tough season after being knocked out of the Champions League and having received solely six matches in all competitions, Sevilla produced a formidable efficiency of their favorite competitors.
In Lisbon, Portuguese champions Sporting needed to combat again to attract 1-1 at dwelling with Denmark’s Midtjylland.
Sporting managed the tempo of the sport however weren’t capable of rework their dominance into objectives. Pedro Goncalves missed a sitter within the first half and Paulinho had a aim dominated out within the second interval for offside.
The Danish facet scored within the 77th minute after a poor clearance from veteran Sporting goalkeeper Antonio Adan, Emam Ashour netting with a first-time shot from lengthy vary into the empty aim.
Sporting, nevertheless, managed to rescue a draw proper on fulltime due to a scrambled close-range effort by Sebastian Coates.
Monaco captain Axel Disasi thundered in a stoppage-time aim to earn his staff a 3-2 win at Bayer Leverkusen of their first leg.
The guests took an sudden ninth-minute lead when Leverkusen keeper Lukas Hradecky, below strain from Breel Embolo, misplaced management of a cross again, stumbled over the ball and despatched it rolling into his personal aim in a slapstick transfer.
However the hosts struck twice early within the second half to bounce again. Moussa Diaby slotted dwelling via the legs of keeper Alexander Nuebel to stage earlier than teenager Florian Wirtz scored an excellent solo aim.
Monaco, who got here into the match on the again of a 3-1 Ligue 1 win over Paris St Germain, levelled with a missile from Krepin Diatta within the 74th minute earlier than Disasi snatched the win for his staff on the loss of life.
(Reporting by Peter Corridor, modifying by Ed Osmond)
